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AS IT IS TO BE 



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BY Jt 



CORA LINN DANIELS 

AUTHOR OF "THE BRONZE BUDDHA " AND "SARDIA 



SIXTH THOUSAND 



BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 

1900 



50022 



l_ibrfcur y of Cona»*«»se 

">wo Cofits Received 
SEP 21 1900 

Copyright wtry 
SECOND COPY. 

lM<verwf t« 

ORDH DIVISION, 



By Cora Linn Daniels. 



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V 



All rights reserved. 



UNIVERSITY PRESS . JOHN WILSON 
AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 



DEDICATION 



E ©eotcate tfjts OTork to gem 

MAY YOU ENJOY AND SPREAD JOY ALL THE DAYS 
OF YOUR LIFE 

C. L. D. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Page 

How the Narrative Began 1 

The Philosopher. The Spiritualist. The Thinker. The 
Physician. The Religionist. The Reader. The Voices. 
The first step. English language. Telegraph. Foreign 
countries. India. Human beings. A living friend. 
Voices of spirits. Subtle difference. 

CHAPTER IT. 
The Process of Dying 7 



Contemplation. Death. Peace. Pure light. Infinite 
content. Faces. Laughter. Rising upwards. Becoming 
changed. No change of individuality. Opening of spir- 
itual consciousness. The walls of Heaven. Location of 
Heaven. Near and far at once. Instantaneous communi- 
cation. Illustration. 

CHAPTER III. 

Light and Speed 15 

Light unlike anything known. A blazing star. Hearing 
at a distance of millions of miles. Instantaneous journey 
from a star. Immortal thought. Eating in Heaven. In- 
tensity of life. A spirit's feat. A spirit at the theatre. 
Startling sympathy. Communication hefore death. An 
intangible grMp. Astonishing phenomena. Throwing 
th(> spirit to a distance. An absent spirit. Do spirits 
suffer? Human sorrow vain. Life like a broken toy. 
Ideas assume form. 



Contents 

CHAPTER IV. page 

The Law of Attraction 25 

Gentle reproaches. Spirits have no power to seek those 
who do not desire them. The law of mutual attraction. 
Magnetic currents. Attention a prime element of spiritual 
law. Will. 

CHAPTER V. 
Evil and Purity . . 28 

A point in morals. No evil in spirit life. Illustration of 
the parable of the ten talents. The symbol of a pure 
soul. 

CHAPTER VI. 

Senses of Spirit 31 

Spirits on approaching earth do not necessarily assume 
human form. Mortals could not recognize a spirit in the 
spiritual form. Spirits have senses and perceptions. 
Spiritual senses magnified infinitely. Spiritual sense of 
touch. Universal knowledge. Cognizance of whatever 
attracts attention. Studies of the spiritual life. More 
than five senses. New senses. Keason is absolute. 
Spiritual knowledge without doubt. The telescopic and 
microscopic eye. Hearing by the law of attraction. Do- 
minion of spirit over matter. The life of spirit depends 
upon conscious Will. The new name. The difference 
between human and spiritual language radical. A lan- 
guage of facts. A spiritual laugh. St. John intensely 
intuitive. 

CHAPTER VII. 

Our Conditions and Surroundings after 

Death 45 

Spirit dictation. A community perishes. What their 
condition ? Children enter a land of unspeakable beauty. 
Heaven's gate not shut to any soul. Progression in spirit 
life instantaneous. Goodness and eternal life joy in them- 

vi 



Contents 

Page 
selves. Evil, properly, not a malignant force. Definition 
too sweeping. No spiritual evil. Evil elemental. Pun- 
ishment. Annihilation of opportunities and joys. No 
soul left helpless. Time of no account. Who was the 
Christ? "My Father and I are One," illustrated. A 
spiritual home. The garment of immortality. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Idea-Facts 59 

Interruption of converse. The issues of life and death. 
Material the manifestation of idea. God's practicality. 
The play of Almighty intellect. Personal entity a fact, 
with or without form. Human life based on expression. 
An intuitive experiment. Expressing an idea-fact. Car- 
ried to the Infinite. No heavenly maps or drawings. 
Reciprocal action of spirit and universe. Ideas are eter- 
nal. Time the sign-manual of human ignorance. Seating 
ourselves on the crown of a sun. Goodness the key to 
spiritualistic power. 

CHAPTER IX. 

Scientific Spiritualism and Heavenly Pow- 
ers 72 

"When the spirit enters an infant. Material a cobweb. 
Penetrating the veil. Normal conditions. Intensest 
passions easiest to manipulate. Communication between 
spirits and men. Millions of believers. Scientific spirit- 
ualism. Production of life. Life a mysterious force. 
Nature yields to a general law. One's standing in spirit 
life. Right for its own sake. Rewards. The "many 
mansions." The relationships of the heart. What is 
mind without form? Choice of a palace or a cottage a 
matter of will. All past ages from which to select. A 
permeating light. Breathing life. Home in every place 
at once. Kindly attentions to weakness and ignorance. 
The crown of goodness. The naturalist. The astronomer. 
The historian. The statesman. A dual unit. The spirit 
of our mate. Male and female mingled in one. 

vii 



Contents 

CHAPTER X. page 

What is Unconscious Will ? 90 

An explanation demanded. Conscious and unconscious 
will. The invisible life of your own spirit. The spirit 
flees away intact. Presentiments. The senses of the 
spirit infinitely fine. What is intuition ? Illustration of 
unconscious will. The eternal idea. Application of eter- 
nal significance to observation. Prayer dominates invis- 
ible forces. 

CHAPTER XI. 

Mortal Mind 98 

Will and imagination. A strange communication. Em- 
anations. Ghosts. Magnetism. The effects of mind. 
The Black Magician. Obsession. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Punishment 107 

Reading in Heaven. Memory absolutely perfect. The 
Alexandrian library. A royal road for a royal child. 
The " out " of Heaven. A germ. A rare spiritual phe- 
nomenon. Punishment of the wicked. An eye for an 
eye. Natural punishment. An unsafe doctrine. Tor- 
ment for torment. The universal sheriff. The punish- 
ment of Napoleon. Memory and contrast. Spiritual 
ignorance. Ignorance is not wicked. The sun of right- 
eousness. The indestructible germ. Blotting out sin. 
Years of probation. Atonement on earth best. The task 
is not hopeless. This is all the hell there is. A Christian 
mother and wicked son. Does the angel suffer ? Comfort 
beyond words. The "great gulf fixed." It is a fable. 
The Testament compilers bungling. No value in morals. 
No separation of place or portion. The Voice has lived 
in heaven a thousand years. There is no hell. There 
is no everlasting punishment. Jesus not necessarily in- 
fallible. The Almighty veil. Christians should be modest. 

viii 



Contents 

CHAPTER XIII. paob 

Spirits do not Tempt — The Celestial Body 131 
A morphine eater renewing his vice. An invisible ap- 
petite. Liars and hypocrites. An insult to man's moral 
nature. Christ a magnetic healer. No fear of intrusive 
spirits. The celestial body. Do young people retain their 
youth ? The current of Heavenly will. The change in 
us brings a desire for a change in our friends. The 
development like that of a rose. No disappointment in 
the land of satisfaction. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Opposing Creeds 137 

Jarring sects. The Calvinist. The Methodist and the 
Roman Catholic. All go to the same place. Love shows 
the vanity of dogma. A simple creed. The overwhelm- 
ing No! The Heavenly creed. Worship of the highest 
ideal. Christ still active. The Christ still able to atone. 
The Word in 1892. The name in Arabia. No savage 
neglected, forgotten, or despised. Goodness ! Goodness 
the universal name. The higher goodness. 



CHAPTER XV. 
The Dual Unit 145 

The Heavenly union. Individuality intact. Each ab- 
sorbs the other. God's secrets. Mismating. The criminal 
code. The union of genius with unappreciation. Ad- 
vantage to the man. Advantage to the woman. Mutual 
advantage. A rule that should work both ways. Con- 
scious and earnest love of God. 

CHAPTER XVI. 
A Curious Experience — Ei.ementaries . . 151 

A strange vision. A critical comment. No struggle. A 
rare phenomenon. A wholly unexpected explanation. 
IX 



Contents 

Page 

Elementaries. Immortal, but not human. Its use. The 
life principle of the brute creation. Nothing is ever lost. 
Renewed friendship with animals. To will from the mass 
into the individual. No individual resurrection of ani- 
mals. God's infinite solicitude. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Re-incarnation — Childish Age 161 

Re-incarnation. Is it possible there is such a thing? 
Re-incarnation of spiritual thought through a material 
medium. The Oriental less spiritual than the Occidental. 
Does goodness alone claim the highest Heavenly reward ? 
Growth rapid, according to harmony of intellect and mo- 
rality. Ambition for perfection the flower of knowledge. 
Heaven enjoyed according to each one's capacity. An 
entity attains individuality by means of an individual 
fleshly form. No necessity for re-incarnation. A descrip- 
tion of the idea of Karma. The soul never lapses into 
the general mass. Why man was born. The essence of 
God illustrated by a crystal ball. The childishness of 
age illustrated. The spirits of the aged who " have lost 
their minds," leave the body. Testimony of my grand- 
father. Is there any relief from the shrinking from death? 
A beautiful answer. The star of eternal life. The body 
and the spirit in a constant struggle. Nothing can dis- 
turb the spirit. Enjoy and spread joy. 



CHAPTER XVm. 

Music, Art, and Memory 183 

Music in heaven. No instruments. Can spirits compose 
and play music ? No such word as " ungratified." Music 
in Heaven is thought. Uttering one's self in violin tones. 
No need of implements. Thought takes form. Thinking 
a statue into form. Artistic utterance permanent. Math- 
ematical morality. The will of the observer the focusing 
point. A prophetic bugbear. Must our hidden histories 
x 



Contents 

Paob 

be read ? An unjust proceeding. Sin, struggle, tempta- 
tion, error, no part of spirit life. The protection of 
silence. Still more beautiful protections in spirit. Obe- 
dience a necessity and a desire. God sets the fashions. 
Visible advantage the result of all acts. We go as a 
whole, not in parts. The million daily drops of vicissi- 
tude. God helps. A diamond illustration. Punishment 
a beneficence. Memory the birth-gift of earth. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Fear 201 

Fear is in its nature harmless. No "evil" an evil until 
abused. A new and unwonted freedom. Fear deals with 
the future. Religious fear an evil. The privilege of fear. 
Business fear. Fear of sickness. We can control forces 
by courage. Imparting vitality. The spirit is crushed 
in a person who fears. God's arm right around you. 
Victory ! Rational courage is power. Each thought an 
invisible influence. Sending out a strong foree for good. 

CHAPTER XX. 

Astrology 213 

Astrology. Planets do not affect individual destiny. Suc- 
cessful predictions more than counterbalanced by unsuc- 
cessful ones. The mind warped and biased by astrology. 
Such superstition beneath an immortal intellect. Re- 
incarnation false. Correct predictions not done by means 
of astrology. An explanation. Will Venus make a poet, 
or Mars a soldier? The craving to know the future. 
Illustration of the fallibility of astrology. The secret 
wish. A Bermudian prediction. A shrewd reader of 
character. 

CHAPTER XXI. 
Providence ... 224 

Invisible compensations. Has prayer any effect? To 
will is often to accomplish. Human life infinitely varied. 

xi 



Contents 

Page 
Prayer an effort of the will. Exceptional providences. 
No such, thing as especial providences. No direct inter- 
position. Providences only applicable to material. The 
keynote of earthly prosperity. Miracles, j 



CHAPTER XXII. 

Thought 240 

Various beliefs as to what the Voices are. I do not 
answer my own questions. Thought. The Voices will 
impress the world. A shell endowed with God's thought. 
Space a place of confusion. A dead body goes into ap- 
parent nothingness. Sifting a motive. Is unuttered 
thought a force ? No general association of ideas. Can 
we prove the meaning of thought ? Projecting one's self. 
Strata of thought. Will thinking riches bring riches ? 
Strataic thought forces. Evil thoughts cause war, re- 
volts, and crimes. Massed thought. Silent thought 
influences all. A fresh breeze. How did the Christ heal 
the sick ? Christ healed by obedience to natural law. 
The spirit has no ear for evil. Spirits cannot respond to 
evil desires. Are spirits disturbed by mortal influences ? 
Defiance of all natural conditions. We may explore the 
world as spirits. A travelling party. Plunging into the 
centre of the earth. The mandate of love. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

The God-Soul of Man 259 

Especial care for God's children. You are God. No self- 
hood out of God. Many spirits have disappeared. Spirits 
as gods. Every soul shall be perfect at last. Is there a 
second death ? The queen-mother. The realm of divine 
holiness. A wall like precious stones. 
xii 



Contents 

CHAPTER XXIV. page 

The Drama — A Day in Heaven .... 265 

Memory. Evolution of elements. Some planets are in- 
habited. Planets differ in glory. The human mind must 
discover material facts. The transcendent genius of men. 
One spirit a living link. Education in spiritual law. 
Scientific data. A satisfactory mission. Poetry, romance, 
and affection. The drama. Dramatists and actors. 
Actors act their own souls. A stage murder. To mor- 
tals death is the tragedy of tragedies. Interesting situa- 
tions. Plots of facts. The supreme moment of love. 
The spiritual canvas. Evil disciplinary and remedial. 
Work out your own salvation. A strong stepping-stone. 
The negatives of Heaven. We shall be strong. The 
kernel of character. Growth and unfolding. Evil blotted 
out. Opera, oratorio, and orchestra in Heaven. The 
envious clock. Intercourse and society in Heaven. The 
shadow of desired privacy. Delightful occupations. Day 
is infinite sight. Added powers. Farewell. 



Xlll 



AS IT IS TO BE 

THE VOICES: A STATEMENT OF FACT 
CHAPTER I 

HOW THE NARRATIVE BEGAN 

THE following narrative of what has 
now become a matter of intensest 
interest to me, will probably be set 
down by most people as a work of the 
imagination ; by others, as a superstitious 
piece of nonsense ; and by a few as a singu- 
lar history of unusual phenomena. The phi- 
losopher, not finding anything infallible in it, 
may shrug his shoulders in disgust ; the spir- 
itualist, already prone to believe his very shad- 
ow is a ghost, will accept it with eager ears ; 
the thinker will theorize on the possibility of 
psychometric impression ; the physician wili 
speculate upon the state of the stomach, the 
nervous system, and the circulation ; the nar- 
1 1 



As It is to Be 



row religionist will declare it to be wholly of 
the devil; and my reader, who, I hope, is 
intelligent, poetic, and comprehensive, may 
admit the truth, at least, of the story itself 
as actually happening, or seeming to happen, 
to me in the following way and order. I 
begin the description of the Voices without 
knowing or dreaming how it will end ; for in 
beginning I feel that I have only taken the 
first step, and they only know where they 
mean to lead me, or how far. 

Throughout my life since I was about 
twenty years old, I have occasionally heard 
what I called Voices speaking to me. These 
Voices are distinct to my consciousness as a 
human voice, yet I realize that they make no 
sound. They speak in the English language, 
but I have often heard them speak a very 
decided brogue, a Scotch idiom, once in a 
great while some language I could not under- 
stand, and very often upon subjects with 
which I had nothing whatever to do, and with 
which I could not have any possible connec- 
tion. I first began to notice these Voices as 
2 



How the Narrative Began 

a sort of dual consciousness. I would be 
thinking in my own words, when I would 
suddenly stop short and listen to what was 
being said besides my own thoughts — just as 
if a telegraph operator should be sending a 
message and still listening to those which 
were being sent over the wires to her. 

If I was in New York I often seemed to 
hear the most laughable conversations going 
on between two Irishwomen, or between per- 
sons evidently of the lower classes ; and I 
have often smiled at the exhibitions of human 
nature so unconsciously made to me. Again, 
I have heard conversations evidently not going 
on in this country at all, and while listening 
to them I would frequently get so strong an 
impression of the speaker that I could actually 
see him. 

At one time I saw a young and an elderly 
military man, each dressed in English mili- 
tary undress, with cork travelling-hats covered 
with white canvas and wrapped with blue 
silk veils, talking to each other, as one lit a 
cigar and the other leaned against a big rock 



As It is to Be 



in the sultry sunshine of a day in India. 
They seemed near Bombay, but in the coun- 
try, and they were discussing some project 
connected with the Khedive of Egypt. This 
was some years ago, but these Voices, talking 
of a thousand things, acted in my conscious- 
ness as if I were a telegraph-wire over which 
constant messages flowed ; and while I could 
often feel that they were going on, and some- 
times get quite a consecutive bit, if I fully real- 
ized and tried to listen to them, I would, by 
the mere act of concentrating my attention, 
seem to stop the message, and I would 
lose the sequel of what was being done or 
said. 

So far, I distinctly recognized the Voices 
as those of human beings still living on the 
earth. In many cases I have communed with 
absent friends, feeling conscious, and after- 
wards ascertaining, that their thoughts were 
upon me at that very time. In one instance, 
while in the night, the Voice of one whom 
I dearly cared for seemed for a long time 
to converse with me. This led me to infer 
4 



How the Narrative Began 

that at times our spirits do leave our bodies, 
both when those bodies are awake and when 
asleep ; for we go on, mechanically perform- 
ing our accustomed affaire, while our minds or 
spirits are far, far away, occupied with others. 
As time went on, I noticed a change in the 
Voices. They now impressed me as being 
the voices of spirits who had passed out of the 
body into the immortal life. Many and long 
have been my inward conversations with 
these spirits (if they be spirits), who have 
told me many wonderful things — things that 
it does not seem to me I could possibly 
imagine. 

To describe how I can converse in my mind 
with the Voices without getting mixed up, is 
difficult. Of course, if I ask a question or 
make a remark I wait for a reply, as in any 
ordinary conversation. Many might think 
that my imagination dictated these replies 
quite as much as it dictated the questions. 
But there is a strong and subtle difference — 
just as strong as is the difference between 
your own speech and that of some one else. 
5 



As It is to Be 



Besides this, I am by no means confined to 
tUe-a-tete. Many talk one after another. 

It was, perhaps, about two years ago when 
the spirit Voices became occasionally familiar 
in conversing with me, and if I was i( blue " 
or unhappy, many were the cheerful words 
they said. But it was not until the autumn 
of 188- that I began to have such definite 
communications that I listened in astonish- 
ment. About that time a very dear friend 
died in a foreign country, and I at once was 
told that the Voices had an especial work for 
me to do. They also intimated that I was to 
be relieved of trouble and anxiety to so great 
an extent that nothing should materially inter- 
fere with this work. As it is now three years 
later, I may interpolate here that my life has 
run in an even current ever since. I have been 
at ease mentally and physically for the past 
period as I had not been for years. 



CHAPTER II 

THE PROCESS OF DYING 

VERY much happened to me that 
absolutely precluded conversation with 
the Voices until the winter set in 
and I was frequently alone in my chamber, 
often about dusk, before dinner, when, not 
yet having had the gas lighted, the dull glow 
from the coals sent out a gleam into the 
darkness. I had a fancy to sit so, thinking of 
many things, often attaining a state of quiet 
adoration of Him who had afflicted me, and 
yet who so gently drew my mind from a 
sorrowful to a cheerful contemplation of both 
past and future. The soul in solitude and 
silence often invites harmonious conditions 
which never obtain in the society of people 
nor in the daylight. It is possible that un- 
seen beings can then approach more closely to 
7 



As It is to Be 



human environments or speak with a more 
potent effect in reaching the mind. 

It was then that I became aware of the 
apparent presence of that friend who had 
recently died ; and while I did not really dare 
to believe it was he, yet I could but hope it 
was that manly and noble and true soul, 
which could never do or say aught but what 
would be wholly honest and good. In a 
mental tremble of hope, doubt, and fear, I 
finally assumed to my own mind that the 
Voice was sometimes his that now spoke to 
me, and I ventured to ask him of himself. 

" Tell me," said I, "if you are allowed to 
do so, what death is like." 

" It is a natural process," said the Voice, 
" like birth, and like birth is an unconscious 
one. Being unconscious, it is painless and 
utterly devoid of fear, and being natural, goes 
on of its own accord without help or hin- 
drance of the person. Shall I describe to you 
what my own death was like ? You are cor- 
rect in using the word ' death/ from which 
spiritualists shrink ; that is the name of the 
8 



The Process of Dying 



process, and might as well be used as any 
other. Well, then, when I died I was in no 
pain and had no fear. For some time during 
my illness I had been rebellious; I did not 
wish to die. I was in the prime of manhood, 
and I could not seem to bring myself to admit 
the righteousness of it. But as time went on 
and I approached my death, I became more 
and more resigned, until I was at peace and 
even happy. 

"The moment of the actual separation of 
my spirit from my body is an absolute blank to 
me ; I know nothing about it. Of what hap- 
pened to me after the time when I drew my 
last conscious breath on earth, I cannot say 
one word. When I awoke, however, to con- 
sciousness here, it was the same kind of con- 
sciousness to which I had been accustomed. 
I felt that I was I, and I knew myself and 
what I was about. My first sensation was of 
light, pure light. This light was different 
from any of which I had been cognizant. It 
was brilliant in the extreme, more brilliant 
than any light I could have imagined, and yet 

I 



As It is to Be 



it did not dazzle or annoy me. The whole 
surrounding atmosphere seemed nothing but 
pure light, in which was no form, no line, no 
object of any kind. 

" My other sensations were those of infinite 
content, rest, and peace. I seemed to be fully 
satisfied ; I wanted nothing. I must have re- 
mained thus, bathing and basking in pure light, 
for some time. But at last I saw, approaching 
me out of the glow, some faces. They were 
faces I knew — my mother, father, and many 
friends. As they approached I saw their 
bodies also. They greeted me with smiles, 
happy speeches, and delightful welcomes, each 
vying to attract my attention and each saying 
some pretty or affectionate thing, with laughter 
and happiness beaming from every eye and lip. 
In a little while I felt myself rising. My 
friends had formed a group like a half-circle, 
and were moving back and up, their faces still 
turned to me, and each doing his or her best 
to attract my attention. They succeeded in 
doing so, for I was constantly replying to them, 
yet at the same time I was conscious that just 
10 



The Process of Dying 



as fast as they rose backward and up I was 
drawn lightly after them, without any volition 
of my own. 

" We seemed to move for an immense dis- 
tance at an immense speed, and as we did so 
I began to notice a gradual change in all the 
forms and faces. The farther we proceeded, 
the more radiant and beautiful they became. 
They began to scintillate colors, throwing out 
rays of many hues, and becoming so changed 
that had I seen them in that way at first, I 
should never have recognized them, for they 
were angelic and exquisitely radiant, and beau- 
tiful beyond all language. They were utterly 
different from what they were on earth, 
and from what they were when I first saw 
them. Yet strange to say, they each kept 
their individuality intact. I knew each per- 
fectly and could not mistake them, any more 
than you can mistake your mother; and yet 
they did not look like anything I had ever 
seen. 

" By this I was taught that as we enter more 
and more the spiritual state, our spiritual con- 
11 



As It is to Be 



sciousness is opened. The more we throw 
off the earthly nature the more we become 
enlightened in things above it. We finally 
reached the walls of Heaven." 

" The walls of Heaven ! " I exclaimed ; " does 
Heaven have a wall ? " 

"You would call it such," answered the 
Voice ; " it is a boundary. One might as well 
call it a wall as anything, in your language." 

" Well," I said, " if Heaven has a wall or 
boundary, it has location ; therefore it is a 
place. I thought it was a state, not a 
place." 

" It is both a state and a place," said the 
Voice. " At last we reached the state and 
place of ' Heaven,' as you call it, and when we 
entered in — I cannot tell you any more. I can 
only say that they who led me grew even more 
magnificent." 

" If it is a place and has location, it must 
be somewhere," said I. "Is it millions and 
billions of miles away ? Is it outside of our 
universe ? " 

" It is a great distance away as measured by 
12 



The Process of Dying 



your miles, and at the same time it is not sepa- 
rated from earth at all. It is right around you 
at the same time that it is an immense distance 
off." 

" How can that be ? " I queried, nonplussed. 

"Because the communication between 
Heaven and earth is literally instantaneous. 
There can be no separation of space where 
there is no separation of time ; therefore, as 
there is no time and no space in the spirit 
world, a place can be away and near at the 
same moment. We are enveloped in an atmos- 
phere which is instantaneous in communication 
between any points, and nothing can be said 
or done on earth that is not known at the same 
second in Heaven. You may say that I used 
the terms of time to describe what is no time ; 
but how else can I convey to your mind the 
ideas that are expressed so differently here? 
There is a constant telegraphy, as it were ; 
or I can illustrate it by saying that when 
you touch a flame with your finger you are 
almost instantly conscious of it in your brain, 
and so the material universe is felt in the 
13 



As It is to Be 



spiritual universe, without the loss of the 
millionth part of a second." 

"And you say it is a state as well as a 
place ? " 

"Yes, but of that I cannot speak, simply 
because no mortal can understand it. To 
know how we feel, you must become one of 
us." 



14 



CHAPTER III 

LIGHT AND SPEED 

THIS ended that chat, and it was some 
time before I had anything said to me 
of so astonishing a nature. Yet I 
frequently held communion with my invisible 
friends and became singularly accustomed to 
them. They seemed to become a part of all 
my thought. 

I was speaking to the Voice of the light 
he had seen, and asked him what it was like. 
Was it like the sun, the moon, gas, electric, 
or what ? The Voice assured me it would be 
impossible to describe it, since it was unlike 
anything his mortal eye had seen ; yet, it was 
something like the soft flame of an Argand 
burner behind a porcelain shade, if one might 
imagine the flame multiplied a million times 
and the shade made of an opal. 

"But it is so difficult to understand this 
instantaneous communication," said I. " Do 
15 



As It is to Be 



you mean to say that, if you were in Heaven 
and I should call you, you could be with me 
just as soon as I called, in actual presence, 
standing by my side ? " 

"Yes, I do." 

At that moment I glanced out of the 
window. There was no light in my room, 
and the rosy glow from the fire was its only 
illumination. The moon was just rising, and 
beside her shone a brilliant star. Now, one 
of my ambitions is to be able to visit other 
worlds. I am in great hopes to be able to do 
so if ever I become a spirit, and on seeing 
this magnificent star blazing forth in its glory, 
I instantly questioned the Voice. 

"Can you go in a moment anywhere you 
please ? Can you go to that star ? " 

I think a moment elapsed before there came 
a reply, — 

" Why, certainly I can." 

" And were you standing on some eminence 
on yonder star, could you still speak to me so 
that I could hear you ? " 

" You hear me, don't you? " said the Voice. 
16 



Light and Speed 



" Why, yes," I answered, somewhat sur- 
prised. 

" Well, I am standing on the very star you 
pointed out. I came here before I answered 
you. Now, doesn't this prove to you that 
there is neither time nor space in spirit ? 
Don't you hear me and understand me as 
well as if I were beside you ? " 

" I confess I do ! " I exclaimed. 

"Well, I am beside you. I am touching 
you." 

"What?" 

" Certainly. How long does it take your 
thought to travel to that star? Not an 
instant. Well, spirit is even subtler and 
swifter than thought; for human thought is 
ever limited by its environment of flesh, and 
must act through it. Immortal thought is 
unhampered by anything material, and knows 
nothing of limitations." 

" Tell me again about the light you first saw 
as you awoke," said I, persisting iu one idea, 
it seemed so fascinating. 

" It was a light so different from any 
2 17 



As It is to Be 



material radiance that I cannot/' the Voice 
answered patiently. (i A man born blind may 
be told what light is like, but he can never 
really imagine it ; so with you." 

" Do you eat there ? " 

The Voice laughed. " If we please, for 
pleasure ! " 

" Then you are not obliged to ? " 

" No. We live in an atmosphere of life, 
nothing but life. There is no decay, no loss, 
no ruin, no fading, no lack, no sense of want 
of any description. The air we breathe is 
life, vibrant, pulsing, dominant, active, all- 
surrounding, all-sustaining, all-upholding. 
We cannot know pain or death, because it is 
the decay of the system that causes pain and 
death. We are always full in every part of 
intense life, and we exist in a state of joyous 
vitality." 

" Then you can have no fear ? " 

" That is one of the sweetest things of our 
existence." 

" Would you not be afraid to encounter a 
fire ? " I asked earnestly. 
18 



Light and Speed 



" I should pass right through it," said the 
Voice, in an amused tone. 

" Pass through it ! " said I, incredulously. 

" Yes, I have walked right through a 
furnace." 

I was silent from amazement. In a moment 
another Voice said, " He is gone," and in some 
way I felt that I was alone. 

I was at the theatre with my mother one even- 
ing, and was much interested in the audience, 
thinking of no spirit certainly, when the Voice 
said to me : " I am going to see the play with 
you to-night ; here I am, right beside you ; " and 
as an empty seat was next to mine, I invol- 
untarily picked up my opera glass, which 
lay upon it, that my companion might sit 
down. 

On occasions too numerous to mention, and 
in the midst of all the daily affairs of life, the 
Voices have come creeping into my conscious- 
ness, with a sympathy and an understanding of 
my most secret thoughts, as beautiful as start- 
ling. Often when my own spirit has been 
exalted and purified by prayer, the Voices of 
19 



As It is to Be 



many together have assured me of their 
approval, and declared that such communion 
with God is the very breath of success and 
happiness, here and hereafter. 

Among other strange, I may say incompre- 
hensible revelations given meat this time, was 
the assertion by one of the Voices that even 
before he died he had had communication 
with me, although at a distance. 

" I did not recognize it then, any more than 
you did. I was not aware that I literally sent 
my spirit out of my body to you and used a 
mutual friend to express some of my feelings 
and sentiments towards you. But it seems 
that I did actually do so. I can hardly be- 
lieve the fact that when still I was a living 
man, pursuing my vocations in a distant city, 
this spirit, this actual I, used to leave that 
body and converse with you by animating 
the thoughts of our mutual friend, influencing 
him to go to you and using him as a medium 
through whom I could have the pleasure of 
grasping your hand. Nevertheless it is true, 
but it is a law of being which even now I do 
20 



Light and Speed 



not pretend to understand, and when I be- 
came aware of it, it was us astonishing to me 
as it is to you." 

I studied this statement for a long time, and 
could but remember instances when it seemed 
to me as if there was actual communication 
between myself and my friends, without any 
visible means. Often I have been so thinking 
of the same thing at the same time, that 
letters of the same date, written by mamma 
and by me to each other, would dwell on the 
same subject, and even seem to answer each 
others questions. Again, I have at times, in 
meeting a person, seemed to see a new sem- 
blance, a phase of character not their own. 

" Then it is possible for a human being to 
throw the spirit out of the body to a dis- 
tance ? " I said. 

" Yes. Have you not many times been 
mechanically doing something, while your 
thoughts were earnestly and entirely absorbed 
with some place or person at a distance? 
And if any one suddenly startled you with a 
question, would it not take a moment to with- 
21 



As It is to Be 



draw your thoughts from that distant object 
and turn them to the person at hand ? " 

" Oh ! often." 

" You were laughed at for being absent- 
minded, perhaps. The word was no mis- 
nomer. Your mind, your spirit, were actually 
absent and your body was actually vacant 
save of enough ethereal life principle and 
consciousness to keep it going. A cord of 
attraction still held your spirit in direct com- 
munication with it, yet was so attenuated as 
to permit an actual absence of the dominant 
force. I have found this out since I came 
here, and I confess I have heard nothing that 
surprised me more." 

" Do you not suffer mentally when you 
observe the grief of your friends ? Did you 
not pity me when I wept ? " 

" I did not suffer, I was not unhappy, and 
yet I did sympathize with you." 

" How could you see me in anguish and not 
be pained ? " 

" Because I see how little human grief is, 
how unreal, how baseless. You wept because 
22 



Light and Speed 



you thought of me as dead, absent forever, 
lost until you should die yourself. Yet here I 
stood beside you, far more alive than yourself, 
and conscious of the absurdity of your grief. 
Yes, I know that even an imaginary grief is 
still a grief, but I could see how short-lived it 
would be — what a comparatively momentary 
affair your whole life would be until you came 
to me — and how certain you were to feel as 
I did when you did come. I felt as a mother 
feels who sees her baby sob over a broken toy. 
She knows baby will have a whole lifetime of 
sweet things ahead, and the toy is so small, 
such a nothing." 

" Then human life is, after all, a little toy, 
and if our friends die, we may feel that they 
have only broken a bauble," said I, bitterly. 

" To enter into the jewel life of princes," 
said the Voice. 

My serenity softly returned. And I notice 
that always, after a chat with the Voices, life 
assumes a more serene aspect. I feel that it 
is short but significant, and to be used as if it 
were endless. A vast sweep of ideas seems 
23 



As It is to Be 



to be waiting for me to enter in on them, 
where, in majestic splendor of limitless beauty 
and grandeur, they swing around an eternal 
centre. Ideas seem to assume form to my 
consciousness, and I vaguely feel as if every 
word was to be found symbolized in the spirit 
life. 



24 



CHAPTER IV 

THE LAW OF ATTRACTION 

I HAVE recently felt what I call a sort 
of spiritual dryness, a stagnation of the 
more intellectual and spiritual qualities 
within me, and I have aspired to no commun- 
ication with the Voices, on account of various 
material circumstances which I did not deem 
appropriate. But the other night I earnestly 
desired the presence of that delightful Voice 
which has so often cheered me, and I had 
hardly uttered in my mind the strong wish 
before I heard it, reproaching me in most 
tender terms for the long time I had allowed 
to elapse since I had called on it before. It 
seemed to be grieved. 

" But have you not been with me, never- 
theless ? " I asked, surprised at the expression 
that my banishment of it had been such a 
25 



As It is to Be 



trial aod its eagerness to approach me had 
been so keen. 

" Why, certainly not," it replied seriously ; 
"we cannot intrude upon you! If you do 
not manifest any desire for us, we have no 
right and no power to seek you. We no 
longer belong to the earth or to the mortal 
state, that we should be governed by mortal 
laws, and we can only come to you when you 
send out your attraction in the form of a wish 
or a desire. 

" In spirit everything is governed by attrac- 
tion, mutual attraction. We may long never 
so much to be beside you, but if you send out 
no attraction, if you do not think of or care 
for us, you literally banish us from your pres- 
ence — aye, from even the very knowledge of 
you. Everything is reciprocal here. You 
seek us with a tender longing, and we in- 
stantly respond with an equal desire, like the 
two ends of a magnet, one positive, the other 
negative, with a constant current between, 
over which flow telegraphic communications." 

" I have often noticed," said I, " that you 
26 



The Law of Attraction 



seem to dwell on the word ' attention ' in 
your descriptions of spirit existence. To at- 
tract attention seems to be one of the strong 
powers of that state, or indeed the manipu- 
lation of the law of attraction." 

" Yes," was answered, " attention is one of 
the prime attributes of spiritual law. The 
mind or soul must be made to set attention on 
whatever it wishes to accomplish. Attention 
is the basal quality of will. No one can will, 
positively and successfully, without first pro- 
foundly setting the mind on the object of de- 
sire. It is for this reason that we must be 
obedient to the law of attraction regarding 
our visits to you. Unless you have us in 
mind to the extent of consciously or uncon- 
sciously willing us to come, we have no cur- 
rent whereby to approach you. You make a 
magnetic current by throwing your will out 
toward us, and we swim to you on its vibrat- 
ing wave." 



27 



CHAPTER V 

EVIL AND PURITY 

A RECENT conversation brought out 
this point in morals. I asked (in 
effect) what should be the highest 
aim of a human being during this life. Not 
all thinkers believe that goodness is the 
highest good, or righteousness the highest aim 
to be pursued by man. For instance, Draper's 
" Intellectual Development of Europe " leads 
up to quite another idea. The answer was 
what one might have expected, but with a 
distinction. 

" It is, of course, to build up a perfect 
character. But to do this one should not so 
much endeavor to eschew evil, as to enlarge 
and develop good. It is more important to 
set the mind on doing and being good than 
to set the will to resist and overcome evil." 
"Why?" 

28 



Evil and Purity 



" Because, when the soul enters this 
world it brings with it only the good. 
The evil is completely purged away. 
Nothing evil can enter here. But the 
residue of permanent good may be very small 
and the spiritual vitality very low, so that the 
man or woman may be a very infant in his new 
life, and have to progress from the mere germ, 
while he who has built up a large and noble 
character of goodwill take his stand as an adult." 

" But what is the difference ? " T cried. " If 
a man eschews evil, he is good, is n't he ? and 
if he is good, just so much good goes with 
him into the other world." 

The spirit laughed. "True in one sense, 
but let me illustrate : Have you not met 
apathetic, self-satisfied, quiet people, who 
moved through life without doing any positive 
evil, but also who did no positive good ? 
That is what Jesus meant when he spoke the 
parable of the ten talents. These people 
simply exist. They do not use their thirty 
or fifty years of life to any advantage. They 
do not grow ; they do not progress. The 
29 



As It is to Be 



spark of spiritual vitality does not become 
a flame; it smoulders, amounting to nothing. 
In them evil is little, certainly, and there is 
little to cast off ; but there is so little life of 
good, that they might as well never have 
been in a fleshly envelope at all, for all the 
status they gain here."^% 

" Oh ! " I exclaimed, " that is very plain 
indeed." 

The Voice then spoke to me in a new way. 

" I am going to show you the symbol of a 
pure, beautiful soul," it said. And presently I 
became aware (although with my eyes closed, 
at night in a dark room) of a lily. It was a 
very large lily. It had no leaves about it, but 
was a pure white blossom, standing alone on 
its stem, about twenty feet from me. But it 
did not continue simply a white lily. It turned 
into a sparkling silver lily, and soon seemed to 
pulse with throbbing life, its whole form vibrat- 
ing with seeming vitality and finally throwing 
off a silver radiance supremely beautiful. In my 
estimate, it was at least two feet high. I finally 
opened my eyes, and I saw and heard no more. 
30 



CHAPTER YI 

SENSES OF SPIRIT 

MY chats with the Voices have 
increased of late, and I have asked 
them some questions about myself 
and themselves. Their answers were often 
unexpected. 

" When you come back to me, thus entering 
the atmosphere of earth, do you re-assume a 
human form ? " 

I fully expected they would answer, " Cer- 
tainly," but instead of that they said " No." 
" What form do you assume ? " said I. 
" I cannot describe it to you ; it is not like 
anything you have ever seen." 
" Is it round?" 
" No." 

" Is it oblong or oval ? " 
" Well, yes, somewhat so ; it is permeated 
with light." 

31 



As It is to Be 



" If that is so and it exists in an atmosphere 
of light, I don't see how one can see it. 
What difference is there between an object 
absolutely permeated with light and the light 
itself?" 

" We have form enough to be individualized. 
You would, if you were in a similar form, 
recognize me, but if you saw me with your 
mortal eyes you would not recognize me at 
all." 

" Where are you at this moment ? " 

"I am standing beside and bending over 

you." 

" And yet if I could see as well as hear you 
I should not see you with your former human 
resemblance of the body ? " 

" No." 

" For one to see you, then, you would have 
to what they call l materialize ' yourself? Can 
that be done ? " 

" I believe it can." 

"Did you ever doit?" 

" No." 

"Well, if you have no human form you 
32 



Senses of Spirit 



have 110 liumau eyes; therefore, can you 
see ? " 

"Yes." 

"And hear?" 

" Certainly." 

"And taste?" 

" We can taste if we please, but we do not 
often. Taste and smell are more animal than 
sight and hearing, and we endeavor to throw 
off all the less spiritual qualities as soon as 
possible." 

" I can imagine that." 

" All the senses are wonderfully intensified 
here. We have a sense of smell a thousand 
times more acute than that of a human being." 

" I should think that would be decidedly 
unpleasant. I sometimes thank my stars that 
my sense of smell is not particularly acute." 

" That is because you are liable to smell 
unpleasant odors. Here we cannot smell any- 
thing unpleasant, because all is eternal vitality. 
Unpleasant odors come from decay, disease, 
and death. They arise from the refuse of 
nature, and arc safeguards, warning humanity 
3 33 



As It is to Be 



away from their dangerous proximity; but 
here, nothing but the odors of sweet and clean 
life obtain, and therefore no kind of smell can 
be obnoxious." 

" How about touch ? " said I. 

" Touch with us is contact of atmospheres. 
It is not like the shaking of two human hands. 
Imagine what it would be to be joined, united, 
intermingled with, and one with your des- 
tined mate, the love of your soul, yourself and 
not yourself, the man-spirit, counterpart of 
your woman-spirit — can you conceive of any 
greater joy? " 

"No. But if you have neither eyes nor 
ears, how do you perceive ? " I went on. 

"Our perceptions are a universal cogni- 
zance of all things that can appeal to con- 
sciousness." 

" That, I should think, was a definition of 
God's powers." 

" One can be conscious of a thing without 
having the power to rule or dispose it, can 
one not ? " 

"Certainly. I am conscious that the sun 
34 






Is 

Senses of Spirit 



shines in the heavens, but I am not able to 
direct his course." 

" Very well, that is precisely our condition. 
We are aware of whatever attracts our atten- 
tion, but we do not presume to alter anything 
not given us to do." 

" And how do you find out how to make 
things attract your attention ? " 

" How do you find things attracting your 
attention on earth ? Everything appeals in 
itself, does it not ? You hear of things from 
every possible source ; your eyes alone hold 
your attention to a million things each day. 
But here we have the added power of getting 
knowledge by simply desiring it. To desire is 
to will. To will is to have. To have is to 
know and understand, in this state of instant 
perception of truth. I would say that if we 
desire knowledge, we pursue it in natural se- 
quence. We study as gradually (though more 
simply) as you do in your books. We go on 
from step to step in any topic which we wish 
to master. 

"For instance, let Chemistry be the sub- 
35 



As It is to Be 



ject ; we proceed to set our attention on any 
combination of matter, and the more intensely 
we will to know, the more rapidly the pro- 
cesses of change in the arrangement and com- 
position of matter go on, unfolding themselves 
to our understanding and perception, until 
the whole process is complete, and that branch 
of chemistry is fully understood. It is de- 
monstrated to what answers to the very eyes 
and ears, smell, taste and touch, besides other 
senses of the spirit, so that it becomes as 
familiar to him as his own new name." 

"You have used two expressions in that 
sentence which I do not understand. You 
speak of l other senses ' and a ' new name/ 
Now, what do you mean by these expres- 
sions ? " 

" We have added senses, senses of percep- 
tion and conception, senses of will, of esti- 
mate, of deduction, of conclusion, all of them 
ringers of the mind, able to grasp ideas as you 
grasp objects with your hands. They are active 
and conscious elements of spirit life, moving 
with the same ease with which your sense of 
36 



Senses of Spirit 



sight moves, and carrying the same conviction 
to our reason. You do not doubt the evi- 
dence of your own senses, do you ? " 

" No." 

" Neither do we doubt the evidence of our 
senses, which assure us with equal precision 
of the stability of our conclusions. Reason, 
with you, consists of the conscious exertion of 
all the elements of logic. In the human form 
they are mere germs, and have to be manipu- 
lated slowly by constant comparison; but 
with us they become absolute. We can rely 
upon them. We do not have to constantly 
compare. What is, appeals to us exactly for 
what it is, in its every minutia of attribute, 
and as there can be no untruth, no decep- 
tion, or misappliance, or falsity, we know 
what we know, without fear, argument, or 
doubt." 

" Let us go back a little," said I. u What 
is the advantage of this intensity of sense — 
as, for instance, the sense of smell ? What is 
the benefit of being able to smell a thousand 
times more acutely than a human being ? " 
37 



As It is to Be 



" The intensity is not confined to any one 
sense, and in all cases it is exactly graduated 
according to the strength and use required 
by the spirit who possesses it. For instance, 
also, we have the telescopic and the micro- 
scopic eye, or perception, which is the same 
thing, and we can hear at the distance of 
millions of miles, or close by." 

" But if you can hear thus, what a jumble 
it must be ! How can you make sense out of 
it ? In one place the whirr of steam ; at the 
same time, on another planet, the roar of cy- 
clonic storm-winds ; music in a thousand dif- 
ferent places ; oceans tearing on a million miles 
of shore — " 

" Stop ! Do not speak such inharmonies. 
Nothing of the kind occurs. We hear by the 
law of attraction and attention, as we live by 
it. We hear what attracts us or we attract, 
or what we wish to hear only. Supposing we 
wish to hear an oration by a man on your 
planet. Do you suppose his voice would be 
submerged under an overwhelming billow of 
universal sound ? No. We should hear what 
38 



Senses of Spirit 



wc were attracted to hear, as you would, — the 
rustle of the audience, the speaker's words, 
the environment of human habitations ; but, 
mark you, if we wish to visit a fiery world, 
bursting continually into deafening explosions, 
or swept by a demoniac roar of flame and 
fury, our strength to receive that impression 
would be instantly adapted to the conditions, 
and we should suffer no pain nor inconven- 
ience from what would strike you deaf for 
life. Or would we gather into our conscious- 
ness the viewless winds which blow around 
the four quarters of your world, or chase with 
unfaltering wing the ministering angel who 
bears the chalice of God's love to bless your 
tiny sphere — behold, we fly on the pinions 
of immortal will, even to its boundaries. 

" Such is the dominion of spirit over matter. 
Such the power of everlasting life, unchange- 
able and perfect, over mutable matter, ever 
changing, ever imperfect, ever advancing, ever 
receding, restlessly producing that eternal mo- 
tion which is its basal law. Passivity in mat- 
ter is impossible ; its very existence depends 
39 



As It is to Be 



on its endless activity. But spirit depends 
not upon activity for its existence ; it depends 
upon conscious will as the basal law, — a will 
above and outside of itself, yet within and a 
part of itself also ; and for this reason it 
remains in one condition as to its existence, 
resting passive upon the bosom of Infinity 
irrespective of every mutation of matter, and 
independent of it. And it is the intuitive 
hint of this fact, caught by the sages of the 
ancient world, that has led to that doctrine 
of the absorption of the soul into the God- 
head, which has become popularly known as 
Nirvana." 

" You certainly have made it very plain to 
me, and I think we have brought your state- 
ments up to date, if I may so express it, all 
but the meaning of the new name to which 
you alluded. Now, what new name have 
you? " 

" Many. Whereas in your language we 
were once called mortals, we are now called 
spirits ; but that is only a general term, indi- 
cating a state more than a race. Individually 
40 



Senses of Spirit 



we each assume a new name with our new 
conditions." 

"What for?" 

" If you went into a foreign land to become 
a permanent inhabitant, using the language, 
and entering society as one of the same class 
and with identified interests, would you be 
likely to use your English name strictly, or 
would you gradually assume the accent and 
style of pronunciation which would always 
be given to it by those who were your 
companions ? " 

" Doubtless I should gradually fall into 
their way of calling me." 

" So do we. The difference between hu- 
man and spiritual language is radical. One 
is a language of symbols ; the other a language 
of realities. Your English is represented by a 
scries of symbols and tones, which in their 
various combinations represent your meaning, 
as the words are written or spoken. You 
have twenty-six signs, which do to express in 
their combinations the ideas you wish to con- 
vey; and, corresponding to those twenty-six 
41 



As It is to Be 



signs, you have tones which, in their varied 
combinations, produce the same effect. One 
you recognize by the eye, one by the ear. 
You smell, taste, and touch neither ; and that 
is an illustration of the superior intellectuality 
of hearing and sight over the other senses, as 
I said before. 

" But we have a language of actualities, of 
realities, which needs no symbolization to be 
communicated one to the other. And as we 
are different in having a language not made 
up of words, and not dependent upon signs, 
so we have also a new name ; as, for instance, 
my name, had it been John Anderson on 
earth, would not now be called John Ander- 
son by my associates." 

" What would you be called ? " 

The spirit smiled. I know it did. I could 
feel the smile just as if I had heard a laugh. 
" How can I answer you, child ! How can I 
tell you, when I must speak in signs, in lan- 
guage, to explain to you something which is 
neither, and which cannot be expressed 
therein ? " 

42 



Senses of Spirit 



" It was in Revelation," I remarked, " that 
the * new name ' was spoken of. What kind of 
a product was that book? Was it really a 
vision of heavenly things, or was it an alle- 
gorical narrative of past experience ? Was it 
what we call an inspired work, or was it the 
writings of a man or men whose brains were 
a little turned ? What authority should it 
have over our lives ? " 

" None. It was not intended as a work on 
morals. It was simply an expos4 of the 
writer's individual conception of the eternal 
life." 

"Did he hit the truth?" 

" More or less, yes. He was intensely in- 
tuitive for his age — at least, the writer who 
so described the heavenly kingdom. Yet the 
book is deeply tinctured with the human prej- 
udices of the age and nation and the culture 
of his time. He also was, necessarily, inclined 
to Oriental symbolism in his expressions, and 
the result is that the work is almost useless 
to modern investigation." 

" Still, it was in a measure inspired ? " 
43 



As It is to Be 



" Yes ; but he was an imperfect medium, 
and blended his previous education with his 
present discoveries. He had not an eye single 
to the propagation of pure truth. " 

" Alas ! few perfect mediums can be found, 
I fancy," said I. 



44 



CHAPTER VII 

OUR CONDITIONS AND SURROUNDINGS AFTER 
DEATH 

SOME of the communications of yester- 
day were so fascinating to me that I 
could hardly bear to stop writing, but 
I was tired and gave it up. The last words 
uttered by the Voices were a courteous sen- 
tence, thanking me for my attention and for 
writing for them. This brought me to a 
sudden recognition of the material part of 
this intercourse, my pen. 

" You dictate to me now, it seems ? " 
"Yes." 

Up to yesterday I had only transcribed the 
conversations occurring between us, when at 
night, or when sitting somewhere by myself, 
I have thought of the Voices and asked them 
some questions. But yesterday I kept right 
45 



As It is to Be 



on, my pen flying at a tremendous rate, and 
I did not stop to see or think whether I was 
finishing a narrative or going on with some- 
thing new. I began again : 

" In the Johnstown disaster thousands of 
people perished. They doubtless included a 
great many phases of character. Some were 
intellectual, some brutal, some innocent, some 
sinful, some spiritual, some animal. Now, 
perishing all together, when each entered the 
new state of the spiritual life, what was the 
spritual status of such ? How did they begin ? 
Who welcomed them ? Or were they left 
unwelcomed? It was the transferring of a 
whole small town from one state of being 
into another. All went together — neighbors, 
cousins, brothers, minister and congregation. 
What became of them? The relationships 
remained the same, the circumstances and 
environment were radically changed. Can 
you explain this ? " 

"Those people occupied the same status 
toward each other that they did on earth. 
The changing of state did not change their 
46 



Our Conditions, etc., after Death 

characters. But they are widely separated as 
to condition. Many of them were sad, afflicted, 
poor, desolate, and discontented on earth. All 
that is past. The children enter into a land 
of unspeakable beauty." 

" Are they separated from their parents ? " 

" No. There is no such thing as separation 
so long as there is attraction between spirits." 

" Can the parents follow them into that 
land of unspeakable beauty ? " 

" They can, but many of them do not yet 
desire it." 

" Where do they remain ? " 

" They remain near their old homes, or seek 
out the homes of spirits whom they knew and 
loved. They go where they are most strongly 
attracted." 

" That is what I wish to get at. Heaven, 
the land of beauty, is not shut upon any one 
who wishes to enter it? All at least enter? 
There is no, 'Too late, too late, ye cannot 
enter here ' ? " 

" No ; but unfortunately most spirits, when 
they just leave the earth, do not seek or aspire 
M 



As It is to Be 



to it. They still cling to the planet on which 
they were born as human, and do not at first 
rise to the conception or belief in anything 
higher. For instance, the farmer might return 
to his wheat-field, the weaver to his loom." 

" But if they have spiritual vision, I should 
think they could see that land, see their inno- 
cent children there, and fly after them." 

" They see only what attracts their attention. 
They attract their children to them instead of 
going after them." 

"Well, that is what I call a slough of 
despond, and is in exact harmony with that 
despairing book called * Light on the Hidden 
Way.' " 

" No, it is not a slough of despond ; it is 
simply that as yet they have not progressed in 
spirit life." 

"How long does such a state of affairs 
continue ? " 

" The progression is instantaneous, and pro- 
ceeds more or less rapidly, according to the 
vitality of the germ, — precisely like birth 
into your world. If the infant is weak, ill- 
48 



Our Conditions, etc., after Death 

developed, puny, sickly, it grows slowly and 
feebly at first, but after a little, with good 
care, becomes as well and strong as any child. 
So with the spiritual germ." 

" But meantime, how about the feelings 
and emotions of these weak ones ? Do they 
not suffer by comparing themselves with 
their friends ? Do they not despair of ever 
progressing, and sink back to earth in 
despondency ? " 

" Such would be the case if evil and sorrow 
could ever enter here; but I have told you 
that good, nothing but good, can exist here, 
and nothing but life, pure life, can fill the 
spirit. Now, however little may be the good 
and the life apportioned to a spirit, what 
there is of it is unadulterated by anything 
which can bring sorrow, for goodness and 
eternal life are joy in themselves." 

" Why can nothing but good exist in the 
spiritual state ? " 

" Because evil is wholly material. It is an 
attribute of what you call nature, and is the 
opposite force which impels incessant action. 
4 49 



As It is to Be 



Without evil the operations of the material 
world could not go on. Evil properly is not 
a malicious or malignant force; but in its 
results, beneficent. But it is a force which 
may be abused by the conscious will, associated 
closely with a material envelope as a medium 
of power. Besides, the definition given to 
evil by humanity has always been by far too 
sweeping a one. An earthquake, a cyclone, 
a fire, a destroying of one race to build up 
another — these and a thousand other things 
like them, which are simply the changes and 
mutations of nature, necessary to its very 
existence, have been designated by man as 
evils, when in fact they have all worked 
together for his good." 

" But what of spiritual evil — the evil of 
the mind, of the soul, which preys upon its 
neighbor and gains pleasure at the expense of 
another ? " 

" There is no spiritual evil. Spirit is ever 

pure, no matter what are its associations. It 

may be crushed out, it may be prevented from 

entering and progressing to any extent in the 

50 



Our Conditions, etc., after Death 

personal identity, but what does enter that 
human body is the saving germ which keeps 
it from utter annihilation." 

" What, then, is the evil that is unjust, 
untrue, murderous, thievish, and every way 
dishonorable ? " 

" It is the survival of the earth element of 
basal force, the ingredient in the universal 
composition which charged the mass with 
contending forces and started the cosmos into 
active being. Evil of all kinds is elemental, 
and a necessary part of the order of things. 
He who is born of a savage race is far more 
full of this elemental passion than he who 
has come of a race which has cultivated itself 
out of and above the material, sufficiently to 
subdue and dominate it; while he who has 
cultivated the intellectual and the spiritual in 
himself sufficiently to rule his body and his 
character, almost emancipating himself from 
the burden of the elemental attributes, has 
already half emerged into that state where 
the material is put off entirely, with the evil 
which belongs to it, and it alone." 
51 



As It is to Be 



"It seems, then, that the punishment re- 
ceived by a person who has been inclined to 
evil all his life, yet still retains some mere 
germ of the spirit, is not an actual punish- 
ment of remorse, grief, and anguish, but is sim- 
ply the fact of his being an infant spirit, of less 
powers than his better friends and neighbors?" 

" If a man knew what that meant he would 
consider it punishment enough ! " exclaimed 
the Voice. 

"What does it mean? You will excuse me 
for thus mercilessly treading on your heels, as 
it were, in this new path of learning. I con- 
fess I do not scruple to make you prove a state- 
ment by asking you point-blank questions." 

" It means annihilation of a thousand op- 
portunities for enjoyment which he might have 
had, if he had chosen to enter here with his 
powers strong and active. He can but real- 
ize his deprivation of magnificent, aye, glori- 
ous powers which would have led him into 
higher and higher joys, and also to know that, 
having taken no advantage of the chances 
offered him in the earth life, he has to begin 
52 



Our Conditions, etc., after Death 

at the foot of the ladder, and toilsomely make 
his way up to the level of his wiser asso- 
ciates.' ' 

" But does this not cause him grief ? " 

" No, not the kind of grief that you know. 
No spirit can ever be hopeless or doubtful. 
He knows there is no more death, and he feels 
within himself the promise of perpetual youth." 

" But if he is not attracted towards good ; 
if he prefers to remain passive ? " 

" Do you think he is left alone, — without 
teaching or help ? Do you leave a babe alone, 
and give him neither care, food, nor shelter ? 
Does even an animal neglect her young, and 
leave it to perish of ignorance, inability, or 
helplessness ? And are we, who live in an 
atmosphere permeated with the light of God, 
less tender or less just or generous than the 
lion or the tiger ? No soul is ever left to its 
own inability or ignorance. It is aroused and 
helped, fed and clothed with knowledge and 
truth, until its past career of evil on the earth 
is so blotted from its consciousness that the 
earth life becomes like a dream — of no mean- 
53 



As It is to Be 



ing or moment, save as the embryo stage of a 
progress which it has forever left behind." 

" I hope this does not occur while one of 
its loved ones remains still in the flesh." 

" Ah ! I was speaking then of ultimate, not 
immediate things. With us time no longer 
tells. We see forward and backward at once, 
and the episode of the earth life seems but a 
day amid days." 

" Speaking of ultimatums, I suppose the 
ultimatum of all progress is to see and be one 
with God. You know it is written, ' The 
pure in heart shall see God.' " 

"Yes." 

" You remember who spoke those words, 
do you not ? " 

" Yes." 

"Who was he?" 

" He was a Jew, a messenger, a prophet, a 
seer, a being of singular powers and singular 
mission." 

" Was he simply a man ? " 

" We believe he was the Son of God, ex- 
actly as he said." 

54 



Our Conditions, etc., after Death 

" Did he ever teach that he was the Crea- 
tor?" 

" No ; you cannot find such an expression." 

" He said, ' I and My Father are One.' " 

" That is true, and so they were one, yet 
he was not the Original Cause, as the word 
'Father' indicates. They were one in pur- 
pose — just as you and I are one in purpose : 
you to hear and execute what I say and give 
you to do." 

" That is a magnificent illustration. 

" But let us drop theology for awhile," said 
I. " I want to know about the relationships 
of heaven. I want to get some kind of an 
idea what my home is going to be like. All 
these ideas of space and endless time and in- 
finity are not cozy and homelike or human. 
In thinking of myself solitarily roaming about 
space, without a settled place to go home to, 
I feel a sense of lonesomeness, even horror, 
which kills out all desire to go." 

"Do you think, then, that we are in a con- 
stant state of wandering over creation ? " 

" Why, I don't know — I don't know any- 
55 



As It is to Be 



thing about it. My idea of intense satisfac- 
tion on earth, is to have a lovely and artistic 
home, with my dear friends about me, leisure 
to study, money to travel, good health, and 
good morals." 

" You can have all these here, if you 
wish." 

" What ! A home of my very own, where 
I can be as hospitable as I wish and still find 
leisure to pursue knowledge and progress in 
mind and soul ? " 

" I see no reason why you should not have 
all these things and many more." 

" Very well — I do not want them — no, I 
will not have them, unless the meanest human 
being shall also share them, or obtain their 
good wishes equally with myself. I realize 
Eternity enough for that ! If I thought one 
poor miserable soul were to be shut into 
i outer darkness ' while I sat inside enjoying 
myself, I could not, I would not rest until he 
too came in." 

" My child, that is just the way 
every spirit feels, from god down." 
56 



Our Conditions, etc., after Death 

I must say that this speech made me draw 
a breath of relief. It taught me to believe 
not the worst, but the best of God. For if I, 
in my mere mortal impurity, can feel no joy 
in the thought of my own salvation while 
another suffers deprivation and sorrow, what 
must He be, far-reaching and abundant as is 
His beautiful love ? 

" Do you wear clothing ? " 

" We are clothed upon with immortality." 

" What does that convey ? " 

" Light is our element, and in different de- 
grees of light we are clothed. Yes, we are in 
colors and in different shades of color. We 
will our clothing as we please, yet there are 
some who have not a choice — those who 
have not yet learned to will." 

" What do they wear ? " 

"Their simple immortality as a garment." 

" Has immortality color or form ? " 

" No, not as you mean it. You mean to be 
a little sarcastic, and ask if immortality is act- 
ually a coat or a dress. But we know what 
mere immortality is without the exercise of 
57 



As It is to Be 



conscious will, and the former is distinct from 
the latter." 

"Many beautiful things are mentioned in 
Revelation, as, for instance, precious stones. 
Now, can one wear precious stones in 
heaven ? " 

" If we were to have precious stones, why 
not all kinds of follies and fashions ? Do you 
think a spirit delights in material combinations 
of silks and satins, feathers and ribbons? 
They may be used as symbols — but, child, 
you wish to make a heaven as material as 
your earth." 



58 



CHAPTER VIII 

IDEA-FACTS 

ALL these months, and not one written 
word of the Voices ! I have been 
far to sea and back again, and ex- 
perienced many new scenes, met new people, 
and have added to my knowledge of the 
world one of its beautiful tropic islands. 
During this time I have not been deserted by 
the Voices, but I have kept no record of what 
they have said to me, save in memory, which, 
thank God, is as good for conversations as it is 
bad for dates and names. Of all, however, 
that I have heard from them, little has been 
of more than personal interest. What has 
been otherwise, I will faithfully recall. The 
fault has lain wholly with my surroundings. 
I had neither leisure nor opportunity to think 
nor listen, yet I have missed it. But once I 
questioned : " Could you tell whether a man 
59 



As It is to Be 



would die, supposing he were ill ? Do you 
know when any one is going to die ? " 

The answer was : " The issues of life and 
death are in the will of the Creator. We can- 
not, any more than when mortal, tell when a 
child is to be born or a mortal to die. He 
alone knows from whom come both life and 
death. It is His secret and we cannot pene- 
trate it." 

" I think I asked you about birth and the 
embryo of a human being, and you said, some 
time back, that the spirit enters into a child 
the instant God forms the idea of that child : 
that it does not have to become an actual 
material fact before it is an individual spirit." 

" The idea is the fact. The material form 
is only the manifestation of that fact. When 
God originates a new idea, then a new fact has 
been uttered ; and the mere putting it into a 
visible form is but the throwing a filmy mantle 
around a statue." 

" And do spirits also utter facts in the way 
of ideas?" 

" Not as creative. Creation belongs to the 
60 



Idea-Facts 



Infinite ; combination to His creature. We 
may manipulate ideas when once He has 
uttered them, but no one can originate the 
smallest truth." 

" But how can ideas or facts be recognized 
as such, unless they do actually become mani- 
fested in some form ? " 

" They are not so recognized, nor intended 
to be. They each do assume form, from the 
grasses of the sea to the stars that shine above 
the waves. The practicality of God is one of 
His infinite perfections. He no sooner con- 
ceives an idea than He puts it to definite use. 
Were we to be able to cognize ideas before 
God had uttered them, we should be able to 
read His mind. No ; all I wish to teach you 
is that ideas are facts in themselves, while the 
transient transmutation of them into a material 
form does not affect them one way or the 
other. They are as real out of form as in 
form. They are the play of that Almighty 
Intellect which forever throws out, in undi- 
minished splendor, abundant and eternal, new 
conceptions, which instantly take their place 
61 



As It is to Be 



and appointed station in their destined order, 
not swerving so much as a hair from the law of 
harmony, which is rooted in the Godhead itself. 

"That you have entered into an envelope 
of flesh upon a diminutive planet to exercise, 
in the majesty of freedom, that will and 
imagination and reason given to your portion 
of Him, is not of particular consequence. 
Had you never been born, you would still 
have been a fact, no matter into what shape 
you were transmuted. If another planet had 
been your transient abiding-place, or had you 
slumbered on in indistinguishable night up to 
this moment, you would still have existed as 
a fact, an idea, since He uttered you, and 
nothing henceforth could annihilate you. As 
it happened you fell into the order of the 
humans (or, I should say, as He disposed of 
your idea that way), you now possess the 
attributes of humanity, and proceed on for- 
ever from that level of being. If, however, 
it had not been so, your entity would still 
have been a fact." 

"I cannot understand that. If I am an 
62 



Idea-Facts 



idea-fact, it must be an idea-fact of a human 
being, not an idea-fact of a dog, or a tree, or 
a drop of water." 

" You do not understand it, because it is so 
hard to make you comprehend what an idea is. 
To you an idea must have form. It must 
allude to something visible, or to something 
that has come within the imagination or ex- 
perience of man. You say you have abstract 
ideas which are not reducible to form, but you 
will find that even your most abstract idea is 
dependent upon a train of logic that is based 
on expression, manifestation, in some way or 
another. Why, an idea must have words to 
be conveyed to your minds at all. To us an 
idea is a reality, known absolutely without the 
appendage of any form at all. And when 
God utters an idea, it is a second process to 
put it into form, yet we are cognizant of it 
before that second process is begun." 

" Can you not illustrate this ? I find it 
still vague." 

" Yes. Do you not know that you can take 
a letter which you never saw until that in- 
63 



As It is to Be 



stant, from a person you never heard of, and 
without perceiving so much of the hand- 
writing as a single word, can place it upon 
your forehead, and almost instantly tell the 
writer's character without a failure ? Do you 
not instantly say, ' sentimental, dreamy, po- 
etic, fond of silence,' etc., as the case may be ? " 

"Yes, I have done it many times, but I 
never knew how I did it, nor do I understand 
it at all." 

"What was it that came into your mind 
before you uttered the word ' sentimental ' ? 
Was it anything with a form ? Did you recog- 
nize it as anything that you had ever seen or 
heard? Or was it an instantaneous cogni- 
zance of something to which you involuntarily 
gave the name of i sentimental ' ? " 

" Why, it was an intuition which amounted 
to a fact ; for the word ' sentimental ' actually 
uttered itself to express it." 

" There ! Now you yourself have described 

an idea. Your spirit was sufficiently awake 

to be what you call intuitive, but what we call 

normal enough to know an idea-fact before it 

64 



Idea-Facts 



was reduced to form. You yourself gave it 
form in the word l sentimental/ with which 
you described a phase of the writer's character, 
but which existed and would exist, whether 
you had ever noted it or not, as a fact, formless 
yet real." 

" And you say that a spirit can perceive and 
understand an idea as soon as it has been 
uttered and before it assumes any definite 
form ? Is not the utterance of an idea an 
expression of an idea, and is not an expression 
a form ? " 

li Yes, but let me illustrate this by a very 
commonplace incident. You lost your screw- 
driver, hunted all over the house for it, gave 
it up and forgot it, did you not ? Then two 
months later you suddenly called out to your 
husband, who had come into another room, 
' Oh, Joe, I think I loaned that screw-driver 
to Miss A, after all ! ' And he returned, ' Yes, 
I have just been there, and she gave it to me. 
Here it is.' Now you perceived the met 
before you knew it. You ' sensed it ' by 
your soul-knowledge, and that is the way we 
5 65 



As It is to Be 



have knowledge of ideas before they reach us 
in form. All I can explain, and all I wish to 
make plain is, that if God had formed the 
idea of a new palace built by the side of the 
river Thames, that, before it had assumed 
form, before a stone was quarried, or an 
architect had conceived a line of it, or the 
first notion of it had dawned in the head of 
the man who would choose to build it, we 
could know it and conceive of it and acknowl- 
edge it to be a fact — as immutable as the 
fact that the palaces of the kings of Egypt 
did once exist by the river Nile. Nor are 
there heavenly maps, nor paradisaical draw- 
ings and specifications by which we could look 
forward to its completion. The only form it 
would be in would be the will of God, which 
we all know, by heart and by soul, and by love 
and by joy, the moment it acts." 

"It seems to me, then, that a spirit is 
practically omniscient." 

"It is, according to its capacity of will, 
attraction, and attention. That is all. We 
do not know everything that will happen or 
66 



Idea-Facts 



has happened. All we know of either is 
what attracts us or we attract. We act on 
the universe and the universe acts on us 
reciprocally. If, for instance, we had the 
building instinct or taste, there is nothing 
whatever to hinder our knowing about all 
the buildings that have been built, or all 
that will be built, so far as God has willed 
them. As long as we pursue the knowledge 
of building, we can have the whole field of 
the past to study in. The fact that a build- 
ing has crumbled to material ruin is no hin- 
drance whatever. The material manifestation 
was but the clothing of the idea. The idea 
still exists, for the idea is spiritual and eternal, 
and we recognize an idea, as I said before, 
without the need of a physical expression." 

" But does not all this take time ? Can 
you cognize ideas to the very end in all their 
multitudinous variations all at once ? " 

" The knowledge comes in succession, cer- 
tainly. We progress from one point to 
another." 

" But what is succession, what is progress, 
67 



As It is to Be 



but the using of time? Yet you say there 
is no time in the spirit world." 

" Time is a man-made division of light and 
darkness. Time is a man-made measure of 
space. The fact that man is limited by a 
body which cannot move at will with the 
rapidity of thought, has forced him to meas- 
ure out the interval which it will take him to 
get from one place to another, and he calls it 
an hour or a day. Time is the sign-manual of 
human ignorance. It is the limit set by God 
to the intellect of mortality. If you eliminate 
time you eliminate space, and conceive, as we 
do, of eternity. But no ; by comparison you 
live, move, and have your being. You com- 
pare the future by the past, and the present 
with both. You cannot think of anything 
with neither beginning nor end. If you draw 
a circle, even in your imagination, you begin 
it, and when the line comes around again you 
end it. Therefore to you, one thing after 
another means a series of moments. Progress 
means a series of actions through a series of 
stages ; cause and effect, and time to do it in. 
68 



Idea-Facts 



" This is the small round of the finite mind. 
But to us time is neither yesterday, to-morrow, 
nor to-day. Now is all there is, and all is 
included in Now. And all will ever be 
included in Now. Our advancing in the 
attainment of ideas is but a manipulation 
of the ever-present Now, which neither 
alters nor changes as to its verity. The 
manifestations of ideas in myriad forms, and 
our becoming cognizant of them, requires no 
comparison of either time or space. We do 
not say, ' Last year I was a million miles from 
here ! ' If we had been a million miles multi- 
plied by a million miles, we should still have 
been just where we are, and where we have 
been, aud where we shall be — in a state of be- 
ing which is everywhere at once, and therefore 
without possibility of calculation by any kind of 
measurement. In so far as we are spirit we es- 
chew limitations, and the nearer we approach 
perfection the more unfettered we become." 

" Well, even although I am fettered and a 
mortal, I don't see practically why I am not 
in the Now as much as you are! I am, it 
09 



As It is to Be 



seems, the mere physical manifestation of an 
idea which is in verity an eternal fact, so I 
don't see why I am not actually enjoying the 
freedom from space and time as much as you 
are." 

" Just so far as that idea acts in you, you 
are. It is not the fact, but the comprehension 
of the fact in which you are lacking. And 
even you have the comprehension of the free- 
dom of your thought, for in an instant you can 
send that thought to the planet Venus, or to 
the isles of the sea you have just quitted, and 
all this without the slightest difficulty or effort, 
and without the slightest necessity for meas- 
urement, either of time or space. Thus you 
can prove my statement in your own mind, 
that it is for the convenience of material con- 
ditions that man has invented the clock and 
the yardstick. 

" Mental conditions, even as imprisoned in 
a brain, do not need these arbitrary rules. 
You leap beyond almighty depths of material 
space the moment you turn your eyes to the 
heavens, and by a ray of light which, being 
70 



Idea-Facts 



material, has taken ages to reach you, seat 
yourself instantly upon the crown of a sun to 
which your own is nothing. This is already 
your power while yet you crawl in ant-like 
insignificance upon a dark and fleeting orb. 
What think you, then, must be your powers 
when, spurning the material, you spring into 
the spiritual, partaking in full of all your soul 
craves, and freed from all that was gross in 
your condition ? 

" Would that man could once know the in- 
finite value of what he so values — time. To 
him, time, to live a little longer in, to pursue 
his pleasures in, to snatch from the Unknown 
another hour of foolish existence, is the one 
desire. What is its true value to him ? To 
cultivate, to build up every longing into a 
conscious willing of righteousness, to add an 
hourly desire to rise, to expand, to broaden in 
every fibre of his mind, and most of all, to 
imitate the unlimited love and generosity of 
his Maker. Those who gain the most good 
soonest attain true spiritual powers. Tell 
that as a fact, an idea-fact, expressed." 
71 



CHAPTER IX 

SCIENTIFIC SPIRITUALISM AND HEAVENLY 
POWERS 



I 



"^HE subject of the union of matter 
with spirit has always been one of 
intense interest to me. How far 
things are spiritual, from the verbena in the 
garden to my Folly dog, or from a bit of gold 
quartz to a child, is a puzzle that I would 
gladly solve. If God is in all things and all 
things are in Him ! But I will ask. 

" Be good enough to tell me if there was 
ever a human being who did not even contain 
a single spark of goodness." 

"No; positively no, not even an embryo 
infant." 

" When does the spirit enter into the infant 
form?" 

" I have told you that the spirit begins on 
the conception of the idea in the mind of 
Eternity." 

72 



Scientific Spiritualism 



" The idea, then, I suppose, is the determin- 
ing power, and not the act of physical union ? " 

" Why, of course. The act of physical 
union would be fruitless were it not deter- 
mined by the will of God to be fruitful. If 
the idea of the babe is uttered, it is perma- 
nent, and finds its expression in a physical 
form as His law determines. Material, the 
expression or result of idea, is transitory. 
Matter alone originates nothing. It is the 
spirit which animates, not any other power. 
The union of two portions of matter produces 
no vital result without the spirit to vivify such 
union. To you, that which appeals to your 
senses is substantial and certain. To us it 
appears as a film, a cobweb, woven across the 
face of infinity." 

" Then, as the Christ said, or, perhaps, St. 
Paul, ' here we see through a glass, darkly, 
but there, face to face.' It is then that the 
material, which, after all, is but a slight 
barrier, stretches as a veil between us and 
reality." 

" You are quite right." 
73 



As It is to Be 



" Can that veil be penetrated by a mortal ? " 

" Are you not doing it in some measure ? " 

" Hearing is not so satisfactory as sight." 

" Mortals have even seen." 

" What state is a mortal in who sees ? A 
normal state, as I am in this minute ? " 

" Were you in a normal state when you saw 
the lily?" 

" Why, yes, I certainly was. I am as sensi- 
ble this moment as I ever am, and I was then. 
But I have always heard that clairvoyance is 
accompanied by a lethargic state — trance, 
coma, or whatever they choose to call it. Is 
such a state of body necessary ? " 

" No, and yes. It depends upon the person. 
You are affected by simple, plain impressions 
on the brain. These need not alter your phys- 
ical or intellectual powers. Indeed, the fact 
that you sit intelligently recording our con- 
versation proves that. Others are impressed 
in their emotions, imaginations, sentiments, 
passions, predilections, the intensest of these 
being the weakest to resist and the easiest to 
manipulate. The predominant force in you 
74 



Scientific Spiritualism 



is reason, and it is easiest approached and 
moulded into the forms of truth. 

"Much of the reasoning in the world is 
wholly wrong because it starts from false 
premises. The material so dominates the 
imagination that the will becomes obstinate 
and refuses to admit ideas outside of that 
realm. To such, a communication like this 
would seem impossible and therefore fraudu- 
lent. You will in all probability never see 
the symbolical expression of spirit life, unless 
under the most favorable conditions, which 
rarely occur. Others could not hear the 
Voices which so readily impress you." 

" In all this you tacitly admit that there is 
actual communication between the mortal and 
the spirit life going on ? " 

" There certainly is a constant and advan- 
tageous exchange of influences, both recog- 
nized and unrecognized. They are visible and 
invisible, open and silent." 

" Can this be increased so that the majority 
of people can receive communications from 
that other world ? " 

75 



As It is to Be 



"Its increase is already rapid. Never in 
the history of man has there been such an 
awakening to the truths of spirit. It only 
lacks some one with sufficient power to demon- 
strate that truth fully, openly, and without the 
slightest secrecy or concealment, to gain mil- 
lions of believers already anxious for a con- 
firmation of their faith." 

" And will such a one appear ? " 

" In due time. And, meantime, many like 
you will give a foretaste, in words pregnant 
with authoritative truth. There must be a 
revolution of ideas concerning death. Men 
must learn to think no longer that it is a thing 
of horror." 

" Has not the fear of death and the mystery 
in which the after-life has been wrapped acted 
as a deterrent force to the evil within him ? " 

" Certainly, up to now. But the world is, 
say what the pessimists may, gradually evolv- 
ing into a more spiritual state, and is there- 
fore more capable of demanding and receiving 
spiritual truths. Among the more intellectual 
classes you will find this great question of 
76 



Scientific Spiritualism 



Scientific Spirituality, or the science of spirit, 
being discussed in a hundred forms ; and even 
the most steadfast adherents of the material 
philosophy must and do admit that there is a 
law, a power, an invisible force outside of it- 
self which lies at the base of and wholly vivi- 
fies matter. 

" Indeed, they do not deny it ; but coming 
to the point where life ends and death begins, 
when asked, ' What is this life ? Whence 
comes it ? Out of what is it born ? ' they an- 
swer, so far as any tests or possible conclusions 
from tests are concerned : ' We do not know. 
It is certainly not a property of matter, yet we 
recognize its existence ; we cannot properly 
trace or define it ; we cannot produce it, yet 
there it is.' " 

" Why, life can be produced by the union 
of matter under certain conditions." 

" The result of the union of two bodies of 
matter under certain conditions is the enter- 
ing in to such a united body, the principle of 
life ; but where that life comes from, or what 
causes it to enter, or how long it will remain 
77 



As It is to Be 



after it has entered, you neither know nor 
can predict. 

"You may set a hen on two eggs, each 
properly impregnated as to natural conditions, 
and one hatches out a chicken and the other 
addles. There is no visible difference in the 
eggs in the first place, but the mysterious force 
refuses to enter one egg and willingly enters 
the other. Now, is there a man or a mind, 
however powerful, that can command that 
both shall hatch ? No. No spirit, even, 
shall dare to command it. The issues of 
life are in the will of God, and extend from 
the worm to the highest organism ever 
created." 

" Yet that force, after all, seems a compliant 
force, or else amenable to law ; for it is not 
difficult for the pigeon-fancier to breed new 
pigeons, nor the bee-keeper to increase his 
swarm. Nature is generally to be relied upon 
in this matter as well as in others. She yields 
to a general law that seems to run through all 
her works." 

" True, and the complaisance of God, with 
78 



Scientific Spiritualism 



His untiring energy of love, seldom dis- 
appoints the confidence reposed in it." 

" Do you think a full knowledge of what 
the spirit life is would be conducive to the 
benefit of the world ? " 

" There can never be full knowledge. 
There can be approximate knowledge ; enough 
to imbue humanity with newer and higher 
aims, and different and more righteous 
ambitions. When it is fully believed that 
one's standing in spirit life absolutely depends 
upon the righteousness of one's character, and 
that a lack of righteousness is the lack of 
every possible advantage, men will be as 
anxious to accumulate goodness as now they 
are to accumulate wealth. Here goodness is 
wealth. But they must believe it absolutely. 
And to teach this, to prove this, will be a 
great mission." 

" I am not satisfied with that kind of moral- 
ity at all. The idea of punishments and 
rewards was always obnoxious to me. I feel 
that the only true goodness is goodness for its 
own sake, with no other motive whatever than 
79 



As It is to Be 



doing it because it is right. Right for its own 
sake, irrespective of results, is my idea of pure 
truth, and I think whoever sets his standard 
lower than that, errs." 

" Yet facts are facts. The man who builds 
up the strongest character of righteousness in 
the human life is the man who stands highest, 
has finest powers and noblest joys in our life. 
Do you mean to say that teaching a child to 
be good because that goodness will win the 
approval of God, the esteem of society, the 
peace of his own conscience, the enlargement 
of his intellectual powers, and the usefulness 
of his existence, thus bringing inevitable joys 
of a rare character to his experience, is setting 
before him a system of rewards? Why call 
them rewards? They are natural sequences 
and progressions in the line of pure right, 
and carry in themselves ample pleasure and 
constant delights. I did not mean to infer 
that the righteous man should have a more 
luxurious ' mansion ' than his neighbor. I 
meant that harmony with right gathers to 
itself all the powers of God, and these advan- 
80 



Scientific Spiritualism 



tagcs arc commanded by him whose motives 
are purest and most unselfish. Thus your 
soul need never be despondent if outward 
circumstances seem against you. For your 
soul lives forever, but the outward circum- 
stances are always transient." 

" And after death is the soul always pros- 
perous, always happy, always at ease ? " 

" As regards its environment, yes, and that 
is the comfort we can give to the most 
despondent. The conditions of the soul are 
always harmonious, and therefore favorable to 
the best possible advancement in every line." 

" Ah ! the wings of my reason and my 
imagination flag. I droop under the abstract 
ideas you give me. I am a woman, with a 
woman's affections and desires, and when you 
say the word ' mansions,' I think of the ' many 
mansions ' prepared for us of which Jesus 
spoke, and I long to know something of them, 
something of the domestic, the affectional 
side of a life I too must enter. I cannot bear 
to think that existence in spirit is a bare 
existence of mere ideas, or idea-facts, which 
6 81 



As It is to Be 



sound to me so cold, so intellectual, so 
logical ! 

"What is the relationship of the heart there ? 
What are the treasures of the happy soul ? 
What do people do ? How do you occupy 
your time ? Are you isolated, or in groups ? 
In families, or communities ? Are there arts 
and sports and laughter and fun and merri- 
ment as on earth, or are you all in some misty 
atmosphere like that poor ghost spoken of by 
the poet who wrote of l twilight land,' of * no 
man's land/ who did not know what he was, 
for ' he only died last night ' ? 

" Can anything be more weird, more ghastly 
than a feeling that spirits are nothing but 
mind ? What is mind if it has no form ? 
An idea, you will say, and ramble off into 
more abstractions. Pardon me, but as yet I 
do not feel at home with you. I don't know 
who you are, or where or how you live. 
Give me some definite hold for my imagina- 
tion. In two words, make me a pen picture 
of your home." 

" We make our homes where we please ; it 
82 



Scientific Spiritualism 



may be in the country or the city. We build 
them out of ideas, which, as I told you 
before, are the only realities. They are very 
beautiful, and they come and go at will. We 
evolve them out of ourselves, in the form of 
ideas. If we wish them to remain, located, 
they remain. If not, they vanish like a morning 
dream. There can be no envy of a man who 
chooses to build himself a palace, when the 
next man can do the same thing if he pleases. 
So, if we prefer a palace, we build one, or if 
we wish a pretty grotto covered with vines, it 
is ours. Poetry, painting, architecture, sculp- 
ture, carving, music, color, every art you 
know and many you cannot conceive of, are 
brought into requisition for the adornment of 
our homes. 

" If you see on earth a diversity of taste 
among the wealthy, in the style of their dwell- 
ings or the furnishing of their apartments, how 
much more might you expect in us, who have 
all past ages to select from or copy, and all 
future improvements to anticipate. But 
there are so many things that are necessary to 
83 



As It is to Be 



you which we neither require nor miss. To 
you a message call, burglar alarm, electric 
lights, steam heat, sewing machines, are all 
luxuries or necessities of profound benefit. 
But of what use are all these things to us ? 
«. " We have but to think our messages ; cer- 
tainly no thieves break through and steal here ; 
our light is a light permeating all things or 
shadowed at will ; our atmosphere is neither 
hot nor cold ; our garments are the emanations 
of our own fancies. 

" Again, a house unprovided with a fine cook 
is a poorly arranged home on earth, while 
here we need no manipulation of material to 
sustain life ; we breathe it — we are it, and 
only to gratify a passing fancy or a fleeting 
remembrance of our former existence on 
earth, should we will into being the richest 
dish that ever tempted an epicure. 

" Fragrance is the atmosphere, music is the 
very air of heaven. Flowers and fruits, beauty 
unspeakable, scenes beyond description gleam 
with ever-changeful glory from the farthest 
heights. Yet height and depth, east and 
84 



Scientific Spiritualism 



west, north and south, what are they to us ? 
I only use the words you can understand. 
Our compass points but in one direction, go 
where we will. To the centre, the centre of 
this glowing stretch of endlessness, we turn, 
forever turn. 

" Home is in every place at once, for love 
makes the home, and Love Supreme dwells 
ever in the very light we breathe. 

" What do we do ? Fly through the worlds 
with speed that leaves their lazy flight behind, 
to carry tidings of great joy abroad. Stoop 
to the lowliest blossom of a new-fledged 
planet, to fill its cup with dew. 

" Do I speak in parables ? The least act is 
the greatest and the greatest least to those who 
only live for good. Myriads of sparks from 
the Infinite leave their material forms, human 
or otherwise, and need those kindly attentions 
which weakness, ignorance, lack of develop- 
ment, persistent evil, the embryo stage, and a 
thousand other causes have made necessary. 
Do we stand idle when they come to join us? 

" And our relations of affection ? Him whom 
85 



As It is to Be 



we hated, we love. Him who wronged us, we 
enjoy. Her who stole our dearest hope from 
us, we seek with gladness ; such is the generos- 
ity of feeling we seek and obtain. 

" And those we love and loved ? 'T is subli- 
mated into poetry and eloquence ; 't is taught 
it never knew how sweet was love. Song 
and silence, grace and triumph — satisfaction — 
satisfaction of every wish, every desire, long 
since so hopeless, comes stealing in and grow- 
ing on the consciousness until not so much as 
the sleepiest little prayer offered as a child 
remains to be answered in full. 

"The crown of goodness lies upon each 
forehead. The joy of goodness beams from 
each countenance ; the rest of goodness calms 
every expression ; the glorious strength and 
energy of goodness lead the way to ever- 
receding heights. 

" Satiation cannot pall amidst an ever-varied 
round of new experience — solitude counter- 
acts society at will. 

" You know your favorite Bryant wrote at 
the end of Thanatopsis, ' and each shall chase 
86 



Scientific Spiritualism 



his favorite phantom ! ' Ah ! that was because 
the phantom is so often a vain and fleeting 
materiality. But here we chase our favorite 
phantom, indeed — a phantom of ideas you call 
it; a tangible reality we know it; unfading, 
indestructible ; never disappointing our ex- 
pectations ; never refusing to yield up its 
inmost secret. 

" Would the naturalist chase to its ocean 
bed the denizen of waters miles in depth ? 
What shall hinder his researches? Would 
the astronomer make himself acquainted with 
the inner strata of a sun? What prevents 
him? Would the historian see in actual 
presence the battles of an Alexander or the 
coup d'etat of a statesman? Surely none 
shall say him nay. Would the disciple of 
Beethoven hear the master compose his 
favorite work ? Here is Beethoven, and on 
the eternal canvas of idea was long ago 
imprinted in indelible notes, tones, harmo- 
nies, touches, motions, vibrations, the long 
past melodies of composers who to you arc 
a half-forgotten name. 

87 



As It is to Be 



"Heart joined to heart and soul to soul, 
our other half, ourself and not ourself, the 
unit, the twin being who rounds us into a 
perfect entity, the mate who is to us like 
lovely music wed to noble words, asserts, in 
ever happy companionship, the possibility of 
divine union. 

" ' No marriage or giving in marriage ? ' 
you say to me in rebuke. True ; for how 
shall one dual being be married? Once, 
perchance, we were each in an individualized 
material form, which might or might not have 
been united one to the other ; but here, 
as one element in a chemical combination 
rushes with irresistible force to join itself 
with another element that attracts it, so, 
without doubt, hesitancy, forethought, desire 
even, the spirit of our mate, our other half, 
rushes to mingle itself forever with us, in all 
the incontrovertible persistence of natural law. 

" Nor are we capable of holding back, for 

every instinct of our being teaches us this is 

the only perfect immortality. We seek with 

joyous delight the one dear counterpart in 

88 



Scientific Spiritualism 



whom can be no mistake, from whom we 
derive completion. Ah, exquisite contra- 
diction and agreement within ourselves at 
once ! She or he, he or she, what matters 
it — or if the male and female mingled into 
one, form a new creature with a new name, 
as John on Patmos saw ! What harmony of 
human conception were worthy to celebrate 
it ? Love was never yet written in words or 
told in story. Only the shadow of his bright 
presence ever illumined the earth-bound air." 



89 



CHAPTER X 

WHAT IS UNCONSCIOUS WILL? 

ALTHOUGH I am constantly gaining 
more faith in what is told me, still, 
ever since the Voices have begun to 
speak with me I have instinctively felt that I 
can bear no failure in their statements. When 
a seeming paradox has been given me I have 
not been .mentally at rest until to my mind it 
has been clearly explained, and so I have, 
since the above writing, dwelt particularly on 
a sentence uttered some pages back, which 
troubled me as I wrote it, and which troubles 
me now. I therefore desire to demand an 
explanation of what is meant in the following : 
" ' Attention is the basal quality of will. 
No one can will positively and successfully 
without first profoundly setting the mind on 
the object of desire. It is for this that we 
must be obedient to the law of attraction in 
our visits to you. Unless you have us in mind 
90 



What is Unconscious Will ? 

sufficiently to consciously or unconsciously will 
us to come, we have no current whereby to 
approach you.' 

" Now, I cannot comprehend the final sen- 
tence. First you say we must set our minds 
positively to work to accomplish anything, and 
then you say unconsciously attract. To will 
you to come is to consciously desire you to 
come ; and we cannot, so far as I can see, 
' unconsciously ' will anything. Attention 
being the basal quality of will, how can any- 
thing be willed unconsciously?" 

" You are in your present condition made 
up of two bodies. You have a physical body 
with its brain, and a spiritual body with its 
soul. Now, in the every-day life that sur- 
rounds you, you intelligently will this or that 
and accomplish your will by setting your at- 
tention on the object and then proceeding to 
action. But at the same time the invisible 
life of your spirit is going on with its own func- 
tions and powers, and the spirit of you being 
the dominant force of you, it often wills in a 
way of which you, as a physical being, arc un- 
91 



As It is to Be 



aware. Do you think spirit begins only when 
your body dies ? Do you think that when 
your body dies your spirit is newly born ? 
Do you think that all the while your body 
grows, and your intellect develops, your spirit 
lies dormant, waiting for you to get through 
with your material form before it clothes you 
with a spiritual form ? " 

" Why, yes, and no. I think it is usual to 
imagine that we become a spirit when we 
cease to be a living being. Still, I am not un- 
aware of the theory that the physical form 
and intellect are pervaded by a spiritual form 
and soul, distinct in itself, so that when the 
body lies dead it flees away intact." 

" It is not a theory ; it is a fact. And what 
do you think that this spirit which pervades 
you is doing all the time that you grow and 
progress ? " 

" The idea that I am double is so new to 
me that I cannot say." 

" Let me illustrate to you : Did you ever 
have a presentiment that came true ? " 

" Yes, and a good many that did not." 
92 



What is Unconscious Will ? 

" Did you ever have an intuition that proved 
correct ? " 

11 Yes, and a good many that did not." 
" Did you ever suffer unrest, remorse, 
doubts, fears, which sometimes proved base- 
less, but often proved the results of an out- 
side cause of which you were at the time 
ignorant ? " 

" Yes, of course, every one has." 
u The inner workings of your mind are your 
spiritual growth, and, with your spirit ever 
busy, many unconscious desires, predilections, 
tendencies, go on, and we may unconsciously 
be desired to come to you by that spirit, who 
also rules you in many things of which you 
arc not practically cognizant. 

"The senses of the spirit, even while at- 
tached to an envelope of flesh, are infinitely 
finer than the senses of the body ; and many 
times when you seem to hear truth with your 
physical ears, and see truth with your physical 
eyes, and touch truth with your physical hands, 
your spirit tells you without words, in what 
you call intuitions, that it is falsehood that 
93 



As It is to Be 



you hear, see, or touch. Have you not many 
a time touched the hand of a stranger and felt 
an inward distrust, repulsion, even loathing 
of him or her ? " 

"Yes." 

" Have you not listened to arguments so 
plausible that a philosopher could not combat 
them, uttered with inimitable persuasion and 
eloquence, and, during it all, has not your 
spirit told you it was all a fraud and warned 
you to keep aloof?" 

" Oh, many times." 

" Did you attribute these warnings to your 
own active and dominant spirit ? " 

"No. I attributed them respectively to 
reason and intuition." 

"What is intuition?" 

" I should say it was the instantaneous per- 
ception of a truth without any basis of reason 
to stand upon." 

" And I should say it was the opening of 

the faculties of the spirit, while yet in the 

body, to the universal truth and knowledge 

which pervades the true spiritual atmosphere." 

94 



What is Unconscious Will ? 

" Still, as I answered you, my intuitions are 
not infallible." 

" Certainly not. No spirit is infallible, no 
matter how high he has reached. Only God 
is infallible. How, then, could one expect 
the earth-bound, flesh-enveloped germ of spirit 
to give infallible instructions, however much 
they may be relied upon, above many of the 
ordinary conclusions of the senses ? " 

" Then, coming back to the original ques- 
tion, man does at times unconsciously will, by 
means of that invisible spirit of his that per- 
vades him ? " 

" He certainly does. But as was suggested 
the other day when you discussed this point, 
here is a much simpler solution. You love 
your mother dearly, and she is far away in 
Bermuda. If you had your way you would 
join her forty times a day or desire her to join 
you. Your souls are in perfect harmony, and 
nothing she does or you do would be uninter- 
esting to the other. 

"Now, practically, your reason and intelli- 
gence tell you that it is useless for you to con- 
95 



As It is to Be 



sciously will your mother to come to you. 
Therefore you do not form in words the 
thought : ' I wish mother were here. Oh, if 
mother could be here to join me in this ! ' 
You put aside any conscious willing of her to 
come, as impracticable. But all the time 
your spirit does actually seek hers. Dominat- 
ing your action, it leads you to avoid what 
she would dislike, and to do what she would 
approve. The longing in you to be with her 
is in its way an unconscious longing, because 
your whole mind seems taken up with affairs, 
but after all, the love in you, the eternal idea, 
which nothing can obliterate, calls and calls 
to her spirit ; and were she a pure spirit, were 
her physical being dead — that physical form 
which holds her on the Island of Bermuda — 
she would be with you in the twinkling of an 
eye. And were you both dead as to your 
bodies, your union, even from the end of mor- 
tal-imagined space, would put the lightning 
flash to shame. 

" Thus it is that you sometimes unconscious- 
ly attract us. The very fact of your mind dwell- 
96 



What is Unconscious Will? 

ing on spiritual subjects and making pure 
truth the object of your warmest enthusiasm 
is an attraction of itself. The very fact that 
you seldom move either among men or amid 
the scenes of Nature without applying a spirit- 
ual and eternal significance to your observa- 
tions, is another ' unconscious attraction,' of 
which you may not be aware. 

" Again, every soul which aspires to God as 
the chief end and aim of existence ; every soul 
who loves God deeply, constantly, and fer- 
vently, calls to itself, holds and commands in- 
visible powers and harmonies of which its 
earth-bound imagination cannot dream. Every 
fervent prayer for light, for truth, for righteous- 
ness, is an unconscious willing of forces which 
make for the causes you advocate. Were you 
conscious of that ? " 

" I am wholly and perfectly answered. I 
have no more to say." 



97 



CHAPTER XI 

MORTAL MIND 

THE Voices now seemed to me to be 
very exalted spirits, yet I felt sweetly 
familiar with them. I asked, "Can 
you tell me what kind of power it is which 
produces raps, table-tippings, footsteps, closed 
doors opened, and indeed such phenomena as 
are always caused by some invisible agent ? " 
" It is an elemental power." 
" What kind of a power is that ? " 
" Material." 

"You mean that it is not a spiritual 
power ? " 
"Yes." 

" But these manifestations seem intelligent. 
The raps and taps answer questions and tell 
things unknown to those manipulating them, 
or rather, questioning them." 
98 



* v 



Mortal Mind 



" Nevertheless, the power is a material force, 
manifested by means of material." 

" Can a material force be intelligent ? " 

" No, but a mortal mind can control a mate- 
rial force so as to make it perform phenomena." 

" Do you mean to say that spirits do not 
communicate by means of these phenomena ? " 

" No ; spirits sometimes do, but never in the 
way you were thinking — mischievously." 

" What is it, then, that thus communicates 
mischievously ? " 

" Mortal mind." 

" You mean that the phenomena arc the 
results of will ? " 

" Yes, will and imagination. The strongest 
will, magnetically considered, in a number of 
people gathered to see such things, generally 
controls the current, and if there be any intel- 
ligent communications, he or she consciously 
or unconsciously produces it, more usually 
unconsciously, as few ' mediums ' understand 
their own powers, and many erroneously at- 
tribute to spirits qualities which they pos- 
sess solely within themselves." 
99 



L*C 



As It is to Be 



" How do you account for the message 
which I received from my dead father, which 
was written on a slate cleaned by me and 
closed by another slate, with nothing between 
them, which I held at arm's length and which 
no one else touched? " 

" We know how that was done. He did 
it." 

" Who did it ? " 

" Your father did it. But there was nothing 
evil in it, was there ? " » 

" Quite the contrary. It was all good." 

" Well, good messages are often given by 
real spirits in various ways. But bad and 
mischievous things are never written, spoken, 
nor acted by spirits. It is impossible. All 
evil is material and mortal." 

" Spiritualists always, everywhere, claim 
that they know there are evil spirits as well 

as good. Take that Mrs. C , that bright, 

good woman. You cannot convince her that 
there are not evil spirits, for she has seen and 
talked with them." 

"No, she has not. Her imagination may 
100 



Mortal Mind 



have produced such a delusion, but she was 
under the influence of mortal mind, not of 
spiritual fact." 

" How is one to discriminate between 
imagination, illusion, and truth ? " 

" Keep strictly to the rule : 

* If it be good it may be spirit — 
If it be bad it cannot be spirit 



> >> 



" What are apparitions ? " 

" They are emanations of material from 
spirit." 

"Emanations?" 

" Yes, they are the spirit idea made mani- 
fest in material." 

" They emanate from spirit ? " 

" Yes ; but mind you, they are not imbued 
with actual spirit. They are mere shadows, 
projections ; they are not actual spirits." 

" In this town an old woman was frequently 
seen lying on her bed after she had long been 
dead and buried. Now, what was that ? " 

" Her strong idea of herself as being there, 
manifested in material, shadowlike, but made 
101 



As It is to Be 



up of actual particles, — the emanation of her 
spirit." 

" So ghosts are real things ? n 

" Yes, and so real that they are chemically 
combined as much as you are, only they are 
not permanent appearances." 

" Why do ' ghosts ' haunt the earth ? " 

" Because the immortal mind behind them 
haunts the earth, attracted, perhaps, by an 
eager desire to atone for some wrong; or it 
may be it is attracted to and longs for the old 
places or some place so strongly as to actually 
become materialized for a more or less time, 
more or less often. Usually a disturbed con- 
dition of the brain at death is the initial 
reason for such re-appearances. 

" Sudden death, great anxiety, some most 
important thing left undone, will frequently 
distract the good of the spirit which comes 
here from an upward progress, and hold it 
by its attraction earth-bound for some time, 
or until satisfaction is achieved." 

" But do not these ghosts often do mischief 
and cause evil ? " 

102 






Mortal Mind 



"No. They may cause fright. Anything 
'abnormal/ as you would call it, would do 
that." 

" Do they never beat or bruise, or set fire, 
or do any kind of evil, as flinging things about 
the house, or making unbearable noises, and in 
two words, do they not take delight in making 
< a row ' ? " 

" No. Every one of those things you have 
mentioned is caused by mortal mind. 

" Some person within reasonable distance of 
the manifestation is full of magnetic qualities, 
which show themselves by currents projected 
and acting on material, as the mind of the 
person works. They often are harmless and 
as often harmful, since evil or good currents 
may be thrown out consciously or unconsciously. 
There are invisible causes as well as visible 
operating in Nature. Mind expresses itself 
quite frequently by magnetic currents acting 
upon material." 

" Could I make a double rap on my door ? " 

" No ; but a very strong medium could, and 
still not know it was he or she who did it. 
103 



As It is to Be 



Usually such things are attributed to the 
action of spirits, but most often falsely." 

" Then, if I sat in a circle and heard distinct 
raps on my chair, knowing nobody could touch 
it, what would it be ? " 

"A magnetic current, impinging suddenly 
upon the wood. It would probably be thrown 
there from the mind of some one present. 
Mind dominates matter. Remember that. 
Some minds of a peculiar quality have de- 
veloped the power of manifestation in material, 
and although they themselves may believe it is 
done by outside spirits, I reiterate that almost 
all of those experiments are done through 
and by mortal mind. Spirits may, but do not 
often, communicate by such means. Words, 
thoughts, impressions, not raps, taps, twang- 
ing and pounding of instruments, are the true 
means of message from our world to yours. 
If in the rarest case such a method becomes 
necessary, you may rest assured the communi- 
cation is very important and always for 
good." 

"That does put a new phase upon the 
104 



Mortal Mind 



affair. Who ever dreamed before that one 
can actually move a table by willing it to 
move ? " 

"Many have discovered their power. In 
olden days what was called the ( Black Magi- 
cian' knew how to manipulate material and 
he could accomplish more or less surprising 
feats by means of his magnetism, which he 
cultivated and conserved. It is not physical 
magnetism alone, but a magnetism of the 
mind, the spirit, which is necessary for the 
actual manipulation of material without con- 
tact. Unfortunately, as long as the spirit is 
still mortal mind, or enveloped in a covering 
of flesh, the material element may predom- 
inate, and evil things be done. However, 
very few persons possess, or if they do possess, 
know how to use this natural power, so not 
much evil is done by it." 

" I know that one mortal mind may domi- 
nate another mortal mind. " 

" Yes, and no end of evil is worked in that 
way. Spiritualists are too prone to attribute 
to spirits everything unusual. Thus they say 
105 



As It is to Be 



that people may be obsessed by an evil spirit. 
Nothing could be more false. A person may 
be hypnotized by a bad mortal mind and thus 
be actually obsessed by that mind, but there 
never was a person yet obsessed by any spirit 
outside of an envelope of flesh. A man or 
woman may obsess or hypnotize another per- 
son and cause them to do any and every pos- 
sible evil. But no spirit can." 

" But obsessed people claim that they see 
or hear a bad spirit ! " 

" So do mesmerized people declare that they 
are freezing or burning if their mesmerizer tells 
them to ! The imagination is at the mercy of 
the hypnotizer, and one might see an angel or 
a devil if so willed." 

" Are many people affected by hypnotists ? " 

"Almost every one during a lifetime has 
some such experience, although both the 
hypnotizer and his subject may be utterly 
unconscious of the processes and influences 
that are at work between them." 



106 



CHAPTER XII 

PUNISHMENT 

LAST evening I began to talk with the 
Voices, and we had the following 
conversation : 
"I often wonder how Heaven can be 
Heaven if we cannot have our own things 
with us. What a disappointment it would be 
to an enthusiastic collector of paintings to be 
obliged to give them all up forever when he 
had secured just what he wanted ! Now, in 
my own case, shall I not miss my possessions ? 
For instance, I have just been arranging my 
books, as perhaps you know. I find I have 
over seven hundred, and I believe they are 
every one of them dear to me. I make con- 
stant use of them. Hcigho ! I suppose when 
I go to you that will be the end of it. You 
don't have books there, I suppose ? " 
107 



As It is to Be 



" Not actual books, do." 

" Don't you read, then ? " 

" Oh ! yes, we read, but we are not obliged 
to have actual books before us, as you do." 

" Oh ! I know. You mean that the idea 
of the book existed before it was written or 
printed, and so you read the idea. But there 
are a good many objections to that, I should 
say. An author's mind is in a state of chaos, 
as it were, in compiling his ideas for a book ; 
it is a process — he writes, scratches out, fills 
in, and is never done changing until he 
finishes the last proof. It would be rather 
tedious, I fancy, to follow the ramifications 
of his ideas. What we want is the finished 
work, and usually not half of that." 

" Well, you can have what you want, and 
you cannot have what you do not want, here, 
so I should think you would be satisfied. You 
have what you are attracted to, and you don't 
have the rest thrust upon you. As for read- 
ing your books, it is not necessary for you, 
when a spirit, to be with them. You can 
read them a million miles off as well as you 
108 



Punishment 



can read them when before you. You can 
read them here, there, or anywhere." 

" Do you mean that what I have once read 
is forever retained and can be recalled to 
memory at will when in the spiritual state ? " 

" Absolutely so." 

" And what about books that I have never 
read at all, but which I should like to 
read ? " 

" They all exist for your pleasure and profit, 
and your mind will take them in whenever 
you choose, wherever you choose." 

M The magnificent library of Alexandria was 
destroyed by fire," I said wistfully. 

" Are you sure ? But material fire cannot 
destroy spiritual facts. The Alexandrian li- 
brary is still as accessible to us as ever." 

" And the Alexandrian authors also ? " I 
cried. " Oh ! what a thought." 

" Yes," said the Voice, as if smiling. 

" But see here. How could I read the 
Alexandrian library ? Why, I took up a 
Greek lexicon last night and became so inter- 
ested in the English definitions and explana- 
109 



As It is to Be 



tions ; but they were so constantly interlarded 
with Latin and Greek that I gave it up in 
despair. How, then, could I read books in 
foreign languages ? Does changing from the 
material into the spiritual form give one a 
royal road to learning?" 

" It should be a royal road for the daughter 
of the king, certainly, and it is. We have a 
universal language." 

"Is it Greek?" 

"No." 

" Then what good will it do when I wish 
to know Greek?" 

"Language in form, tone, symbol, is of 
human and material invention. It is the uni- 
versal language shattered into parts. The 
universal language contains all languages, and 
is the root and crown of all idioms and diver- 
sifications. We, who know the root of all 
languages, have no difficulty in comprehending 
the different branches. Does not the tree 
know its own fruitage ? " 

" This will be a joy to scholars." 

" Heaven is joy." 

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Punishment 



" But out of Heaven, or before one gets 
there ? Is there an out of Heaven ? " 

" The preachers say so." 

" I know it. It troubles my soul, for I see 
no answer to it. You say sin and evil are 
wholly material and cannot enter the spiritual 
existence. What, then, of a man wholly 
given over to sin ? " 

" No man is wholly given over to sin. 
God is in him, more or less." 

" Well, supposing we say less — less to the 
utmost degree — what becomes of him ? " 

" Do you mean to take the extreme case ? " 

" Yes, the most extreme case possible." 

" He becomes a germ." 

"A germ!" 

"A spiritual germ, answering to material 
protoplasm. It is from this rare phenomenon 
— for it is a spiritual phenomenon, it is so 
rare — that men have caught the notion of 
annihilation. They knew instinctively that 
there was such a tiling as apparent annihila- 
tion, and out of this soul-consciousness lias 
arisen the formulated idea. But the germ is 
111 



As It is to Be 



never annihilated. It may remain dormant 
indefinitely — we cannot say how long, it is 
in the decree of God — bnt He eventually 
vivifies it and it begins its career of progress. 
Being spiritual, its progress is proportionately 
rapid." 

" I cannot see any punishment to the wicked 
in this. If the germ lies unconscious, but 
heaven and eternity are stilt before it, I can- 
not see how its sins are of any practical dis- 
advantage to it, or cause it either remorse or 
suffering." 

" Who told you that human beings were 
created to suffer ? " 

"Justice. Wrong must right itself. The 
wicked must be redeemed out of their wicked- 
ness ; the evil must be purged out of their 
natures." 

" But why by suffering ? " 

" Because they have made others suffer." 

" Oh ! an eye for an eye, a tooth for a 
tooth. You are Jewish, then ? " 

" No, just." 

" And merciful ? " 

112 



Punishment 



" Yes, merciful, for if there were no punish- 
ment for evil, evil would overrun the earth. 
Civilization would be in ruins." 

" Don't you punish your criminals ? " 

" Yes, when we can catch them." 

" You have caught them and punished them 
enough to save civilization from ruin, have n't 
you?" 

" Yes, I suppose we have." 

" And Nature severely punishes all sins 
against her, does she not ? " 

" Yes, sometimes to the third and fourth 
generation, innocent though they be." 

" Society condemns petty evils also, docs it 
not ? There is a punishment for even the 
awkwardness of the boor, is there not, — in 
derision, or sneers, or laughs, or avoidance ? 

" Look over the world and count your pun- 
ishments. After that look into the world's 
conscience and count its secret punishments. 
Do you not think there is enough punishment 
right where you are, without our importing it 
into our peaceful country ? " 

"You arc teaching mo a dangerous doc- 
8 113 



As It is to Be 



trine. The fear of future punishment of some 
sort is one of the strong links that bind soci- 
ety together. Let it be known that there is 
no remorse, no suffering, no sorrow in the after- 
life, but merely the being born again into a 
new and safe and sweet condition — let it be 
known and believed, I say, and the statistics 
of suicide would be overwhelming, while crime 
would ride rampant over our heads. The law 
of love may do in Heaven, but not on earth." 
"Then you think love and mercy cannot 
eliminate evil. You believe justice and suf- 
fering only can bring a man to a realizing 
sense of his misdeeds. Unless he suffers what 
he has made others suffer, either mentally or 
physically, he cannot appreciate the extent of 
the misery he has caused, or desire to cease 
to inflict it, or rise to better things? For 
you, if a man causes a man to be burnt at the 
stake, he should also be burnt at the stake. 
If a man torments his wife with a thousand 
petty, mean, miserable misdeeds and words, 
he should be subjected to exactly the same 
experience. 

114 



Punishment 



" If she retaliates she should be retaliated 
upon to the degree she strikes, and so on end- 
lessly. This is a pleasant picture. Will you 
please tell us whom you have appointed to be 
your universal sheriff in the spiritual world ? " 

" I don't know. I cannot say. I must 
only think that in justice we should reap the 
fruit of our misdeeds, good or evil." 

" Alas ! child, how blindly you speak. 
How little you value the power of words. 
Reap the fruit of your deeds ! What was the 
fruit of Napoleon's deeds ? Were not the 
nations of the earth influenced? Were not 
whole peoples changed ? Did not he make a 
million widows and orphans ? Did not he 
sweep the world with his sword? Did he 
not scourge nations as with a whip, yet, after 
all, were they not purified as with a flame? 
Are not the fruits of his deeds endlet 
Have not you eaten them ? And will you 
heap this whirlwind of suffering all upon the 
devoted head of Napoleon ? Can you say 
whether or not he was a minister of the Di- 
vine Will ? Yet heap the ■ fruits of his deeds' 
115 



As It is to Be 



upon him ! ' Tit for tat/ that is the course of 
your justice, untempered by mercy and love. 
See where it leads you ! There is no justice 
in it all. It resolves itself into fiendish 
cruelty." 

" What is the spiritual law, then ? " 
" We have told you. Cultivate spirituality, 
goodness, mercy, love. These, crowned by 
faith, hope, and charity, make the elements 
of eternal life. More or less so you will be, 
as you possess them, and if so little as to be 
merely a germ, thus missing glories unutterable, 
still, under the sun and dew of God's love, 
you will finally begin to develop, progress, and 
rise." 

" Do we remember our misdeeds ? " 
"Yes, you remember everything. In con- 
trast, you see what you might have been. 
Every attribute of your nature now longs for 
good and abhors evil. Your whole aspiration 
is to be in harmony with God, and the remem- 
brance that you were ever out of harmony 
with Him is an exquisite pain that only final 
perfection will eliminate, — a pain with an 
116 



Punishment 



eternal hope in it, to be sure, but full of 
realization." 

" I cannot answer you at times. You strike 
me dumb with my own blindness, if I can use 
such a term. And the strange thing is that 
when you answer me exactly contrarily to 
what I anticipated, I am convinced of your 
truth the moment you utter it. You are 
infinitely persuasive. I must believe you, 
whether I will or no. 

11 1 have been thinking," I continued, " about 
the great gulf fixed, i so that they which would 
pass from hence to you cannot, neither can 
they pass from thence to us, that would come 
thence/ which, in the Gospel of St. Luke, is 
spoken of by Abraham. Between the Heaven 
and hell spoken of there, it appears there is no 
passing. Dives was in anguish, and Lazarus, 
in Abraham's bosom, in happiness. One could 
not go to the other. What does it mean ? 
What truth is there in it ? " 

" There is no spiritual truth in it at all. It 
is a fable, — a story written years and years 
before Christ. He is supposed to have told 
117 



As It is to Be 



it, but He did not. If you will look at the 
chapter carefully, you will see that this story 
neither begins nor ends with any allusion to 
the Christ. He ends His speech by speaking 
of adultery, and instantly, without any con- 
nection whatever, this Jewish fable is intro- 
duced, and the next chapter goes on without 
any application, or lesson, or moral drawn from 
the story, by Christ speaking of e offences.' 
The tale is ' old as the hills,' and is of human 
conception entirely, like a thousand other 
myths. 

"Remember the compilers of the New 
Testament had very many old manuscripts to 
select from, and they put the life of the 
Saviour together in a very bungling fashion. 
This had nothing to do with Him." 

" Christ was either inspired or not inspired, 
either true or false, divine or human. If He 
said there was a hell, He certainly believed it, 
and if He was inspired and divine, it was 
true." 

" Not necessarily. You must remember that 
Jesus was the son of a woman. He was human. 
118 



Punishment 



He said He was the Son of Man. He may 
have been dual, but certainly He was both 
inspired and not inspired ; both human and 
divine. Actuated by two natures, His teach- 
ings may have varied with them. Doubtless 
He believed all He taught. But His intellect, 
training, education, custom, habit — all these 
influences may have told upon His opinions. 
He never claimed to be infallible ; it was 
His followers who came after Him that did 
that." 

"May have, may have — why do you say 
' may have ' ? Don't you knoiv whether Christ 
is divine, the Son of God, after living in the 
spiritual Heaven a thousand years ? " 

"No." 

" I should think, then, that your information 
on any subject would not be reliable. If you, 
who have been in Heaven so long, cannot tell 
me anything about the Saviour, how shall I 
trust what you may affirm ? Why cannot you 
tell me of this most important thing ? " 

" The almighty veil is drawn hefoke 
His face. We feel, but we do not see 
119 



As It is to Be 



the Godhead. I cannot say if within 
the Godhead exists a Christ. I know 

I HAVE NEVER SEEN HlM OUT OF IT." 

" Christ said : c The pure in heart shall see 
God.' " 

"True, but He did not say how long it 
would be before they should see Him, nor 
designate when." 

" I think that believers in Christianity look 
forward to seeing Jesus at once, and if they 
could not imagine Him as to be seen in a 
human form, recognizable as their human 
Saviour, they would be disappointed beyond 
words." 

"Let them ask themselves if they comply 
with the condition — a pure heart. On con- 
sidering that, they may be willing to modestly 
wait until called." 

u But a thousand years ! " 

" And does that seem so long to you ? Yet 
remember, to Him a thousand years are but 
as one day." 

" Is there such a thing as spiritual blindness 
in your world, — such spiritual blindness as 
120 



Punishment 



to exclude from the spirit the light and joy of 
Heaven ? " 

"No." 

" What truth is there in Swedenborg's state- 
ment that some people, after death, are still 
so wilfully evil that spiritual truths cannot be 
imparted to them ? " 

" There is no truth in it. The statement is 
founded on his belief in a hell, and the eternal 
degradation of some spirits, which belief is 
utterly false." 

" But there must be spiritual ignorance ! 
How is that dealt with ? " 

" With tender mercy. As we have told you, 
the spiritually ignorant are simply undeveloped 
spirits who need and receive teaching and en- 
lightenment* Some are more quick to learn 
than others, but none are utterly blind. 
The receptive faculty may be dormant and 
unsunned, as one might say, but how long 
do you suppose it can remain dormant in our 
atmosphere ? " 

" But if the will of the spirit is opposed to 
enlightenment? Take a thoroughly evil man, 
121 



As It is to Be 



who has always been selfish, ignorant, obstinate, 
tyrannical, cruel, and self-conceited. He thinks 
he knows it all. He does n't think anybody can 
enlighten him. He scoffs at angelic wisdom, 
and would laugh any one to scorn as an old 
fogy who would try to inform him that he is 
living on a low, unworthy plane, unfit for his 
future destiny. What can you do with a wil- 
ful fellow like that ? I have seen such." 

"He leaves his selfishness, obstinacy, tyr- 
anny, cruelty and self-conceit behind him 
when he comes here. His ignorance is not an 
evil, so he still remains so. But ignorance is 
not wicked. Then, although ignorant, he also 
brings whatever good quality he did possess, 
one or more. Now, as soon as the selfishness, 
obstinacy, tyranny, cruelty, and self-conceit are 
taken out of him, it leaves him with a residue 
of a few kind impulses, gentle acts, transient 
sympathies, and generous thoughts, perhaps, 
which give us ground to work upon, and him 
a tendency towards good. He is now in an 
atmosphere in harmony with good, which is a 
law, acting with the same unerring force as the 
122 



Punishment 



law of gravitation in the natural world. Ho 
gravitates towards good in spite of himself, 
just as a ball dropped from a tower gravitates 
towards the earth in spite of itself. 

" The immense attraction of the Sun of 
Righteousness draws and holds all spirits 
towards good, even as the sun of your physi- 
cal world holds and draws all planets towards 
itself. The result is, that having shed those 
evil qualities he had with the body, he keeps 
only the spiritual qualities he attained and 
developed, and by our ministrations and God's 
attractive force, he inevitably tends upward 
and onward. No soul is exempt from this laiv." 

" Wherein comes the theory of free-will, 
then ? " 

" Man has free-will only to a limited extent. 
He has never been given free-will enough to 
absolutely destroy himself. As regards his 
own final destiny, he has no free-will, cither 
on earth or hereafter. He has free-will to 
the extent of non-development of his own 
spiritual powers, and can carry it to such an 
extent that the angels look with pitying 
1 28 



As It is to Be 



horror upon his obstinate depravity; but do 
what he will, he cannot kill out within him- 
self the indestructible germ of spirit, which is 
immortal and eternal, and which, after a cer- 
tain series of vicissitudes, will inevitably 
develop and come to ultimate perfection." 

" Are those vicissitudes full of pain, misery, 
agony? Do they in any imaginable form 
resemble passing through a hell ? " 

"No." 

" Do they resemble in any way a punish- 
ment, remedial or otherwise ? " 

"They do in this sense: the spirit, now 
deprived of all tendency to evil, is yet conscious 
of his past, the opportunities he has missed, 
the joys he might have had and won, and the 
approval of God which might have been his. 

"We actually hang with ecstatic 
delight upon the approval of god. 
There is nothing in Heaven or on 
earth which we would not suffer, do, 

GIVE, OFFER, SACRIFICE, TO GAIN IT. It 
IS THE VERY BREATH OF OUR EXISTENCE. 

" If we feel the least disapproval of any act, 
124 



Punishment 



thought, feeling, or other emotion, which we 
cannot explain to you, because there are spirit- 
ual emotions of which no mortal ever dreamed, 
we are so exquisitely sensitive to it that it is 
as harsh and agonizing to our spiritual senses 
as a stone would be in your eye. 

" We love God so utterly, and know His 
judgment and criticism to be so unapproach- 
ably pure, that to offend Him, or rather to 
grieve Him, is an unspeakable pain, a sorrow 
that is nothing like your earthly sorrow for 
intensity, yet parallels it when you have really 
wronged and hurt one whom you would give 
your life to please. 

" Well, this new-comer, such as you have 
described, having entered this realm of spirit- 
ual emotion, partakes of all our feelings, and 
being now terribly aware of his ill-spent years, 
his shortcomings, his neglect of truth and 
right, his spiritual deformity in the midst 
of ineffable beauty, so infinitely desires the 
forgiveness and approval of God that even 
Heaven cannot charm him until that harmony 
is established." 

125 



As It is to Be 



" And does God forgive him ? And does 
he get into harmony ? " 

" Eventually." 

" By what means does he gain it ? " 

" By blotting out, one by one, his transgres- 
sions, until his soul is purified and white and 
innocent as a child's." 

" How is that done ? " 

" He seeks every soul, every animate thing, 
beast or human, that he has ever wronged in 
thought, word, or deed, and humbly tries to 
repair that wrong, gain forgiveness for that 
cruelty, receive in penitence and contriteness 
of heart whatever just penalty is imposed, and 
offers himself over and over again as a repent- 
ant soul, seeking to do all he can to undo all 
the wickedness of his earth-life. 

" To accomplish this he must sometimes wait 
until he can meet his enemy, or the one he 
has wronged, face to face, and that cannot be 
until that wronged soul has come itself into 
Heaven. Years may pass before the explana- 
tion, the pleading, can take place ; but in time 
every sentient thing, including every insect 
126 



Punishment 



even, which he wilfully hurt from selfish or 
idle pleasure, or gratification of a mere animal 
instinct to kill or slay unnecessarily, yields its 
forgiveness, not in actual words, but in a way 
understood by his spirit. And at last he is 
free from stain, free from dark spots which 
spoil the immortal beauty of his spiritual 
form." 

" And then God forgives him, too, and takes 
him into harmony ? " 

" When man forgives his own soul, 
God also forgives him, for God and he 
in essence are one. then is harmony." 

" As no person is without these stains and 
blemishes of character in word, thought, and 
deed, all must go through this very process, I 
suppose." 

"More or less, yes. But before death 
many go through the process while yet within 
their natural bodies. They think over their 
sins with such true and perfect penitence, and 
would so fully repent and atone were their 
physical condition compatible, that they go 
127 



As It is to Be 



through the purifying fire of remorse while yet 

on earth, and enter here in the possession of 

divine peace. The repentance and atonement 

upon earth is a quicker, better, and nobler 

process than the long and minute discipline to 

which the soul is subjected here. 

" God sees the heart. Nothing can hide the 

truth from Him. He is within the heart and 

i 

knows its every beat. There can be no 
hypocrisy, glossing over, palliating, or excus- 
ing to that inner spirit which you all know is 
within you. And if, before death, by any 
means, you can become honestly at peace and 
forgiven to yourselves by yourselves, you may 
consider that you have accomplished your 
forgiveness, which is God's. Your own souls 
are your own judges. You cannot forgive 
yourselves until you are worthy." 

" And until we do forgive ourselves Heaven 
itself cannot give us joy ? " 

" Heaven will give you sympathy, tender- 
ness, courage, instruction, and all manner of 
help. You will not be left alone to work out 
your salvation with fear and trembling, but 
128 



Punishment 



you will be one of a great multitude, all busy 
at the same task, some just beginning, some 
far advanced, some emancipated and rejoicing 
with great joy. 

" And another thing, the task is not hope- 
less. You know you will accomplish it, and 
the eagerness with which you set about puri- 
fying yourself will be as wings to your feet." 

" What a glorious and just law ! I am 
amenable to it. I welcome it. I will forever 
abide in its belief, and, so help me God, I 
will begin now to wipe out my stains." 

" Well done, my child." 

" Some say there is no probation after 
death. We are judged by the deeds done in 
the body and if we do not come up to the 
standard we are condemned forthwith." 

" We do not use the word i probation ' in 
that sense at all. Your probation simply means 
that you are rooting your spiritual nature, and 
when it is strong enough to shoot up into the 
full sunshine you will begin to grow, under 
new and wholly favorable conditions." 

"So this is all the hell there is?" 
9 129 



As It is to Be 



" This is all." 

" There is something yet, however, about 
which I am troubled. Here is a loving Chris- 
tian mother in harmony with God. Her son 
is wicked beyond expression. Both die. 
One becomes an angel, full of angelic powers ; 
the other becomes an infant, a mere germ, 
lying dormant indefinitely. Does not the 
angel suffer in seeing her son lie deaf and 
dumb to Heaven's glories ? " 

" No. She becomes his sun and dew. She 
is the minister to his salvation. Were he 
dead, she might mourn, but she knows he 
liveth, and that the evil that wrung her heart 
on earth is all done away with forever. ' Re- 
joice ! ' she cries, ' ye saints, ye angel host, for 
my son who was dead is alive again ; the lost 
is found/ " 



130 



CHAPTER XIII 

SPIRITS DO NOT TEMPT — THE CELESTIAL 
BODY 

" f I "VIERE is a dreadful thing taught by 
spiritualists — so dreadful, indeed 
-*- that I can hardly bear to think of 
it — to the effect that mortals are sometimes 
taken possession of by wicked spirits, who 
lead them into all sorts of evils ; as, for in- 
stance, morphine eating. A person who died 
a morphine eater has the power to renew his 
vice through the medium of some unfortunate 
sensitive, and so fill him with a desire for 
morphine that he, too, shall involuntarily be- 
come a morphine cater to gorge the invisible 
appetite that preys upon him. Or perhaps 
some poor fellow born with an hereditary thirst 
dies a drunkard, and then in the spirit con- 
tinuing to long for stimulants, fastens like a 
leech upon some other poor mortal, and leads 
181 



As It is to Be 



him astray. I wish to know if there is any 
truth whatever in this horrible doctrine." 

" We are astonished by the pranks of the 
human imagination, and were it possible for 
celestial beings to be angry, we should indig- 
nantly deny so base and unworthy an impu- 
tation upon the Almighty justice and honor. 

" Away with such liars, such hypocrites, 
who, to excuse a vile passion, try to thrust the 
responsibility upon beings whose whole exist- 
ence towards them is, and can but be, only 
beneficent and exalting ! 

" Shame on the cowards who dare not own 
to the unrestrained evil within them ! There 
are many who claim to be mediums and clair- 
voyants, who promulgate ideas which are ab- 
solutely false. Their ignorance has helped a 
belief which is full of corruption, misunder- 
standing, and superstition. No, wholly no ! 
Man was not made to be the unconscious 
prey of beings more powerful than himself; 
the slave of invisible spirits whose sole busi- 
ness is to ruin him. Nor could his Maker 
subject him to such an insult to his moral 
132 



Spirits do not Tempt 



nature. Whatever exists of passion in man 
is his own and no other's, and to answer for it 
he, and he alone, will be compelled." 

" How about the demons, spirits, and devils 
that Jesus cast out ? " 

" Men called hysteria, insanity, nervous 
prostration, illness of any peculiar form, a 
devil, for they knew little enough of anatomy 
or physiology. In fact, their vocabulary did 
not include words which would in any proper 
way designate a disease. The Christ was a 
natural healer, possessed of refined spiritual 
powers. His magnetism healed the sick. 
Their faith, which, you will remark, He al- 
ways insisted upon and commended, helped 
the recovery. They were physically ill. He 
cast out neither spirit nor devil." 

" Then we may fear no intrusion of spirits 
or impressions unwelcome to us ? " 

" Your independence and solitude arc as 
secure as if you were the King of kings. Your 
own spiritual will, the highest and divinest 
part of you alone, can attract a spirit to your 
presence, and if it be that you demand entire 
133 



As It is to Be 



exemption from any approach or intercourse 
whatever, you have but to become conscious 
merely that such is your desire, and no wind 
that ever blew could drive us fast enough 
away to satisfy us, and fulfil the law of re- 
pulsion." 

" I would like to ask you more about the 
germ. Although the germ of spiritual life 
is all that enters your atmosphere from an 
almost wholly evil individuality, does it as- 
sume a celestial body, or does it remain un- 
developed even as to its envelopment ? " 

" There is in your imagination a certain 
form which you wish me to say belongs to the 
angelic race, and you think, by questioning 
thus, that you will ascertain whether you 
are correct. But I cannot describe to you a 
celestial body. Youth, age, childhood, in- 
fancy, are terms which convey to your mind 
different phases of earthly images, the image 
of the Creator, and so you marvel if an ' in- 
fant ' in spiritual life looks like a little human, 
sucking, smiling baby. 

" You think of your dear old grandfather 
134 



Spirits do not Tempt 



with his silvery locks, and wonder if he will 
be the first to meet yon, looking so familiarly, 
just as when he sat in his chair by the fire- 
place. You think of young people who have 
passed on, and wonder if they retain their 
youth. It is a great and puzzling question to 
you and to all who think about it. ' Shall we 
see our friends again as we knew them here ? 
If not, we shall be so sorry, so disappointed.' 
" Now, for your present comfort, I will say 
that when you come to us, gently borne upon 
the current of Heavenly will, you will find 
nothing to frighten you or render you other- 
wise than perfectly at ease. If it occurs to 
you to think of your friends at first and to 
wish for them, it will not be an instant before 
you see them, just as you expect to see them 
or desire to see them. But this will not and 
cannot last. The development in spiritual 
vision which will come to you will change 
you, and in changing, you will no longer de- 
sire to see your beloved ones as you knew 
them. Satisfied with them at first, you would 
become deeply dissatisfied if, while changing 
135 



As It is to Be 



yourself into the new and celestial form, they 
remained as of old. For mingled in one 
supreme and beautiful whole, are infancy, 
childhood, youth, middle age, and age, rounded 
and full in those who experienced all of these, 
and exquisitely anticipative in those who did 
not pass childhood and youth. 

" Like the bud, the half-blown rose, the rose 
in its perfumed splendor, each beautiful and 
perfect in its stage, are v those beings who, 
not any more assuming the indefiniteness of 
change, as in earthly life, are at all times per- 
fect as to form, according to the glory within 
them. Ask not, then, to know whether the 
germ or the saint has a celestial body. Be- 
lieve that no language could describe to you 
what no eye of mortal hath seen. Rest satis- 
fied that no one shall be dissatisfied in this 
land of satisfaction, where every pure craving 
of a tender soul meets with its exquisite and 
divine fulfilment out of the unutterable bounty 
of God." 



136 



CHAPTER XIV 

OPPOSING CREEDS 

OVER the beauty of the foregoing 
communication I happily dwelt for 
the day. I wore it upon my heart 
like a new jewel. And, by the way, once 
suddenly I heard the Voices say : " Love 
which you mortals send to us spirits takes 
the semblance of jewels. Your love for your 
dear friend burns like a ruby on her breast and 
flames out when you think of her." But this 
morning, on thinking of the one hundred and 
one sects — " the two and seventy jarring 
sects," as Omar Khayyam hath it — of this too 
jarring world, I thought I would ask the 
Voices what becomes of opposite opinions in 
the land of light. 

" Opposite opinions arc harmonized in one 
comprehension of truth. Where knowledge 
137 



As It is to Be 



is, can be no argument. Your creed-makers 
all agree that there is a sun. Here they know 
there is a Sun of Righteousness, and harmony 
with Him is the only admissible creed." 

" Yes, but error of opinion must exist some- 
where. You say a man takes his memory 
with him. Well, he dies a Calvinist, while 
his neighbor dies a Methodist, and their friend 
died a Roman Catholic. Each was good, 
each a Christian, but each remembers what 
he was. How can they get over it ? How 
can the Catholic help believing that absolu- 
tion is necessary to salvation ? How can the 
Calvinist help believing in election ? How 
can the Methodist help believing in the neces- 
sity for conversion? They think these are 
essential points in the scheme of salvation, 
and that he who does not accept them is lost. 
I have a relative to-day who honestly believes, 
because I have never joined any church nor 
become 'converted,' that I shall inevitably 
be separated from her eternally in the here- 
after. She begs me with great tenderness to 
be a Christian, while I am satisfied to say that 
138 



Opposing Creeds 



I am just a lover of God. What can harmon- 
ize all these opposing beliefs ? " 

" In the first place, they all come here," 
said the Voice. " That answers it as far as 
hell, purgatory, and everlasting punishment 
are concerned. Then they see among them 
people who professed no creed at all. En- 
lightenment, like a beam, creeps into the dark 
crevices of their minds, hitherto filled with 
the prejudices of inheritance, education, cus- 
tom. Charity, broadening the intellect and 
inflaming the heart with universal sympathy, 
softly sweeps away from their souls the clouds 
of intellectual error. Love, all-surrounding, 
all-commanding, shows them the vanity of for- 
mula, the selfishness of dogma, the pride of 
theologic wile, the obstinacy of human preju- 
dice, the sanctity of Right for its own sake, 
the overwhelming No, uttered against non- 
conformity to a universal creed including all 
intelligent beings, and proportioning to each 
his share of glory as the pure goodness of his 
heart deserves. 

" It is not, it cannot be, a matter of organi- 
131) 



As It is to Be 



zation, election, foreordination, atonement, bap- 
tism, conversion, which ' elects,' and ' chooses,' 
and ' calls ' men and women to a higher sphere. 
It is loving and worshipping the Father, loving 
and being kind to all fellow-creatures, dumb 
animals, and the wicked and the unfortunate 
alike ; it is the right exercise of every power, 
the loyalty to honest purposes and high aims, 
the self-sacrifice for others, the ordering of life 
with a view to a nobler and better state of 
existence hereafter, which leads the soul on 
and up into a state of beatitude and bliss. 
Goodness ! that is all the conversion needed 
to bring you here, and to profit by every 
advantage of Heaven. 

" Be a heathen and love your highest ideal, 
the ideal which means God to you, even if it 
be a rock or a stick, and we will welcome you 
with the same joy, and God will grant you the 
same love, as if you sought Him before the 
altar of the most orthodox church." 

" Bat the Congregationalists teach that we 
are all naturally depraved, and that, unless we 
can believe in Jesus Christ as the atonement 
140 



Opposing Creeds 



for our sins, we cannot enter the Kingdom 
of Heaven. l There is no other name under 
Heaven/ you remember He said Himself, 
4 whereby you can approach the Father save 
through Me/ or words to that effect. How 
can you answer that ? " 

"By simply saying that whoever uttered 
those words in the flesh is now inevitably 
somewhere in the spirit, and if the Christ 
exists in the Godhead, do you doubt that He 
is as active now as He was two thousand 
years ago? Can He be blind and deaf to 
the cries of humanity? He holdeth the 
sickle in His hand, and reapeth the ripe 
grain of His ancient sowing. His minister- 
ing angel still bears His messages of peace 
to earth. 

" Is not His name as potent, His will as 
strong, His compassion as tender, His consid- 
eration as deep, His comprehension as broad, 
and His love as perfect as when He conde- 
scended to tread your planet centuries ago ? 
What do you suppose the dear Christ is doing 
all this time? Do you think His invisible in- 
141 



As It is to Be 



fluenceis not as persuasive as was His visible? 
Is the time gone by when He hath power to 
raise from the dead, to heal the sick, to rescue 
the perishing, to atone for the wicked ? How 
know you, feeble and weak-sighted mortal that 
you are, what are the plans and intentions of 
One for every living soul to-day, or how His 
Name, taking various forms in various con- 
sciousnesses, is not as much the Word to-day 
as in 33 ? If you see a stranger walk up the 
lane, and accost him, and he answers you in a 
foreign tongue, you feel he is an alien, a being 
not of your kind, like a bear or an elephant ; 
he is different — you do not know him. Yet, 
if you look into his Arabian mind, for instance, 
you will find him at sacred moments worship- 
ping God, and the dew of God's blessing rest- 
ing on his forehead. 

" Say the Name to him ; he may have heard 
it, but it is of no moment to him. Yet the 
Name is at that moment written on his heart 
in some deed of righteousness that would put 
your petty sacrifices to shame. 

" Be not narrow. He who came to save the 
142 



Opposing Creeds 



world will save it, rest assured ; and if the 
savage who burns his ox-meat on some rudely 
constructed pile before an idol offers up the 
love and homage of his poor, ignorant nature 
as well as he knows how, do not think that 
he is forgotten, neglected, or despised, save of 
those churches who grant him and his ancestors 
a burning hell for the sole portion of their mis- 
fortunes, and no probation even for the inno- 
cent babe he carries on his rude but human 
bosom. 

" We cry out, we who watch the madness 
of the world, in longing to save it from itself. 
And cannot you trust Him who gave Himself 
to order things aright? Speak aloud, aye, 
shout the word ' Goodness ' in the ears of men. 
There is a creed worth having, and the only 
one inclusive enough to hold The Spirit." 

"Then whoever has been born into this 
world has an inalienable right to eternal life, 
and the varied theologies of men arc but the 
outcome of the intellectual struggle for a true 
religious basis? " 

"Yes. But outside of genuine goodnrss 
143 



As It is to Be 



all creeds are chaff. It is by unity in good- 
ness that men dwell here. The Incarnate 
Goodness is the universal Name that needeth 
no translation, for it is known among all 
nations and is the same in all tongues." 

" In using the word ' incarnate ' goodness, 
I suppose you mean the goodness done in the 
flesh by man to man as we know it, do you 
not ? You are so careful in the use of words 
that I wish to make sure." 

" Yes. I meant that goodness that is 
recognizable everywhere, and which is the 
reflection of the Source of goodness, even as 
a lake reflects the stars. Of the higher good- 
ness I did not speak." 

"Is there, then, a higher goodness, — a 
goodness greater than itself ? " 

" Aye ; but it is above the comprehension 
of any creature of the soil." 

" Ah, what a vista you open before me ! 
What a hint of something unimagined, yet 
dimly recognized as possible ! " 

" Say no more. It is beyond." 



144 



CHAPTER XV 

THE DUAL UNIT 

" 1^ ^~AY I request you to explain a 
\/ I little about the dual unit to which 

-**- * -*~you have alluded several times in 
the past ? What kind of a union can it be 
which makes one person out of two ? Are 
they personally joined together ? " 

" You mistake us if you think one person is 
made out of two to produce a dual unit. 
The individuality of each person is intact, 
but at the same time is imparted to its mate, 
so that there is complete union of being as to 
memory, experience, thought, tendency, taste, 
inspiration, intention, and goal." 

" Can you not illustrate this so that I can 
understand it more clearly ? " 

" The dual unit, the one made of two, mas- 
culine and feminine, when joined here, are as 
one being. Mark you, we do not say, are one 
10 11. 






As It is to Be 



being, as if a man and a woman were moulded, 
like a lump of clay, into a new form, but are 
as one being as to all spiritual essence. Each 
absorbs and holds the other — mingles, mixes 
with, resembles the other. All mutual or 
separate experiences are blended into har- 
mony. If one was artistic, but lacked busi- 
ness qualities, the other would have business 
qualities and very likely not be artistic, but in 
the one being business and art would come 
together, and thus supplement each and make 
it perfect. Thus you see how beautifully God 
plans for His children. What one lacks the 
other will possess, provided that lack is neces- 
sary to be made up to form a harmonious union. 
God's secrets are always more lovely than the 
gifts He reveals." 

"It is so seldom that people with genius 
here find a mate who appreciates them. Is 
not one of the chief sorrows of this world the 
result of mismating ? " 

" Never call a marriage a mismating. How- 
ever it may affect either party, there was need 
of the experience by each. The idea that 
146 



The Dual Unit 



people have a right to consider themselves 
free because a marriage is not congenial has 
led to more wrongs, errors, crimes, sensuality, 
and earthiness than many another seemingly 
greater evil." 

" But supposing one of the partners is crim- 
inal, cruel, brutal ? " 

" That is another question, and comes under 
another head. It is not defined in the mar- 
riage law, either of earth or of heaven. It 
should be relegated to the criminal code, 
where it belongs, and its punishment should 
be the cutting the offender off from society, 
like a theft, a rape, an arson. What we 
allude to is the easy loosing of a bond which 
has simply become tiresome, distasteful, or 
filled with unpleasant duties. When it be- 
comes unendurable, dragging both body and 
soul into low and disorganizing states, the 
experience has served its purpose and must 
legally be brought to a close." 

" What is the advantage gained by a man 
of genius from being united to a common- 
place, dull, unapprcciative woman ? " 
147 



As It is to Be 



" Perhaps just the fretting of his soul. His 
struggle to lift her, or his pity or scorn of her 
incompetency, or his disappointment, casting 
him more and more upon his own resources, 
may draw out of his life harp-strains of 
immortal beauty which might never have 
sounded in the sweet but enervating society of 
one like himself." 

"And what is the advantage to the 
woman ? " 

" Association with genius ; the society it 
draws around it. The hearing, even dully, 
noble and beautiful thoughts, or the seeing of 
grand pictures, or the absorbing of rich music, 
inevitably have their effect, even if not a 
visible one. Through the dull or almost 
dumb medium of the body, a growing soul 
may not make itself strongly manifest, her 
mind even may seem to shut itself in un- 
responsive silence ; but always take into 
aecount that spirit of hers, which, pure, takes 
in only the good. Then you will see the 
mutual advantage of a seemingly unfortunate 
marriage." 

148 



The Dual Unit 



" How, then, ' all things work together for 
good for those who love God ' ? " 

"They certainly do, but should you not 
turn it the other way, and make it for those 
whom God loves ? It is a poor rule that does 
not work both ways." 

" Ah ! but would that quite do ? It would 
mean everybody then, would it not? For 
none would dare say that God does not love 
all His children." 

" Well, if you take all who love God, and 
all whom God loves, you make a perfect rule 
perfectly applicable to all. And as the sun 
shines on the just and the unjust alike, we 
cannot see whom you can exclude. Know that 
there is a meaning to that saying which renders 
it particular, at the same time it is universal. 
Those who consciously and earnestly love 
God, place their spirits in instant harmony 
with His. His will then becomes their will, 
and they offer in themselves no opposition to 
the divine plan, which is included in the human 
plan, even as the human is included in the 
divine. And in offering no opposition, but 
149 



As It is to Be 



gladly and lovingly yielding to God's sweet 
way, the whole universe, material and spiritual, 
bends to serve and obey the mortal, as if it 
were the Immortal will, since in harmony 
they are one." 



150 



CHAPTER XVI 

A CURIOUS EXPERIENCE — ELEMENTARIES 

ONCE in a while during my friendship 
with these strange companions I 
have seemed to have interior glimpses 
of things and happenings not cognizant by 
my mortal senses. I cannot call them visions, 
I should rather call them intuitions, a con- 
sciousness without senses. A very curious 
experience happened last evening. I was 
just beginning to hear the Voices speak, when 
I became aware of a struggle in mid-air. It 
seemed to me as if a spirit, about five hun- 
dred feet in the air, were struggling with 
some power or powers, and crying out, " Let 
me go ! Let me alone ! I will not go back ! 
Why do you hold me ? Let me go, I say ! " 
over and over again. 

I felt critical in my mind while I was im- 
pressed by what seemed to me to be a quar- 
L53 



As It is to Be 



rel, and, as I am ever on the alert to detect 
the Voices in one misstatement, I said to 
myself : " Ha ! there is no evil spirit, they say, 
yet behold, there is a struggle and a quar- 
rel and loud cries in the very air." 

In a very brief time the spirit I saw — for 
it seemed to me I saw this, although I know 
I did not see it with my own bodily eyes, but 
with my perceptions — was drawn down to 
earth and was silenced by what I believed to 
be other spirits, although I saw nothing but 
the spirit who seemed to fight air. I then 
said in a somewhat sarcastic tone : " That 
was a very pretty sight for the Heavenly 
sphere ! " 

" It is strange," said the Voice, " and it is 
very painful, if what we feel can be called 
so, because it draws us sympathetically so 
close to the material." 

" What was it ? I thought there was with 
you nothing so material as a quarrel." 

" That was not a quarrel ! " the Voice ex- 
claimed ; " it was a rare occurrence which we 
very seldom observe. The spirit you saw 
152 



A Curious Experience 



was that of a man who was dying. His 
friends believed him, for the moment, dead. 
His spirit was so far separated from the body 
as to be conscious of itself and its new free- 
dom. But nature, vitality, the life of the 
material, was so strong in him that he could 
not fully dissever himself from the body ; 
the law of attraction still held him too closely 
to the material to permit him to escape. 

" He realized the pulling back, the strong 
power behind him pulling on every limb, and 
only half awakened to his true state, he be- 
lieved he was attacked and jostled and pulled 
back by other spirits. So he cried out as you 
heard, deceived, as you were deceived ; but 
finally obliged to yield, he had to re-enter his 
body. His friends doubtless thought he 
fainted, or fell into a state of coma, since he 
came to life. He will probably live." 

I was thunderstruck at this startling, this 
wholly unexpected explanation of the singular 
scene. And now I think it over, this is the 
second time I have seen anything. The vision 
of the silver lily was the first and this is the 
1 58 



As It is to Be 



second spirit view I have had — both full of 
significance. . . . 

The next day I began to think of what I 
have read regarding the belief of ancient na- 
tions in what is called Elementals. They are 
mentioned in many books as spirits and as 
lying, mischievous spirits who can exercise an 
evil and deceptive power over man. 

" Permit me to ask you, my good Voices, 
what an Elemental is, or rather, is there such 
a thing?" 

" There is." 

"What is it?" 

" An undeveloped spirit." 

" May I ask if it is a germ ? " 

" It is not." 

" If undeveloped it is in embryo, perhaps." 

" No. It is spirit in so far as it is immor- 
tal, but it was never human and can never 
attain to human spirithood. It is not earthly 
but earthlike — an emanation of primeval mat- 
ter. It possesses intelligence without soul. 
It is conscious without knowledge. It is the 
154 



A Curious Experience 



brute force — the physical vitality — trans- 
formed into a sort of spiritual vitality." 

" What is its use in the economy of na- 
ture ? " 

" The preservation of the kind. It is the 
unreasoning and unmoral intelligence which 
animates animals, birds, insects, fish, vermin, 
and all life below the human, — the idea-fact 
of the lower order of intelligence which can- 
not rise to human consciousness or thought. 
Were it not for the existence of elementals, 
animals would become extinct or dwindle in 
vitality, instinct, and intelligence to mere idiots 
of animals, one might say. The spirit of a 
living being of any order is superior to the 
being itself. Although an elemental is only 
the life-principle of a brute creation, yet it 
partakes enough of its eternal inheritance of 
glory to know, to think, to utter itself." 

" You certainly seem to contradict yourself. 
You first say it is conscious without knowl- 
edge, and then you say it can know and 
think." 

" So does your dog know its master, think 
155 



As It is to Be 



of food and seek it, and utter its meaning by 
motions. But, certainly, you would never 
say your dog has knowledge. He is con- 
scious, but not moral. He is capable of 
reasoning and yet is not a reasonable and 
therefore responsible being. So it is with the 
elemental, which represents the animal spirit." 

" Animals do, then, have a hereafter ? " 

"Nothing is ever lost." 

" I have often hoped that the sufferings of 
horses in the service of man, the faithfulness 
of dogs, the affection of many other animals, 
should be rewarded. Can I feel that our pets 
who have been so really dear to us do not 
absolutely perish at death ? " 

"They do not. You can renew your 
friendship for animals, if you please." 

" And are they conscious of a newer and, 
better condition? For instance, a splendid, 
willing, trusty, intelligent horse, which has 
been beaten, abused, starved to death here — 
does he awaken to a consciousness of warmth, 
ease, plenty, all that his brute instincts de- 
sire?" 

156 



A Curious Experience 



" No. He is merged in the general whole." 

" Then how can I observe him when I am 
a spirit, or know him as ' Old Bill ' (a fine old 
fellow long gone to his rest) ? " 

" Because you will him out of the general 
into the individual, by your desire, attraction, 
and attention." 

" A phantom of my own consciousness ? " 

" No, a reality, since you desire it." 

" I cannot understand this." 

'* Well, imagine all the beasts that ever ex- 
isted. Would you desire that they should 
re-exist in an individual form ? " 

"No. That would be a howling wilder- 
ness, I should say." 

" Very well. Be satisfied, then, with the 
law that any sentient being below the human, 
when leaving the material form, merges into 
the mass of elemental force, adding its vitality 
to the spiritual atmosphere from which new 
material forms are emanated. But if, com- 
manded by the superior human spirit, any 
particular animal is willed and attracted out 
of the general mass into an individual spirit- 
L57 



As It is to Be 



ual entity, it will obey and become as real a 
dog or cat to the human spirit as it was a 
material dog or cat to the mortal. Were it 
not so, the supremacy of the soul above the 
intelligence would not be maintained." 

" The Rev. J. G. Wood, author of < Man 
and Beast/ would, I am sure, be pleased with 
this information. His great heart suffers in 
the thought of animal annihilation." 

" Human beings are apt to endow animals 
with more human attributes of thought, feel- 
ing, sensitiveness, delicacy even, than they 
possess. But such feelings toward animals 
are ennobling in the extreme. They refine 
and uplift. Thus there is a reactive in- 
fluence." 

" But all this leaves me where I began in 
my thought. Where is the compensation for 
anguish endured by animals and dumb life 
everywhere ? What joy shall come into their 
consciousness to repay them for the pain of 
their existence in this life ? In what way is 
justice and mercy to be dealt to them, who, 
sinless, still suffer and suffer, only at last to 
158 



A Curious Experience 



be killed for the food of man or some other 
creature for whose prey they were born ? 
Who is to recompense this enormous mass of 
pain that forever goes on, without stop or 
limit, in beings who cannot sin, but who live 
solely to fulfil the requirements of the nature 
bestowed upon them? If they do not con- 
sciously live again, how useless appears their 
existence, — a vicarious existence, a forced 
sacrifice of life for the sustaining of other 
orders in which they have no part and from 
whom they receive no consideration." 

"We cannot give you any answer. The 
fact remains that the animal does not attain a 
separate and conscious individuality. As far 
as we have ever known, no animal has been 
conscious of any reward or compensation for 
his earthly sufferings. Possessed of no lasting 
memory, he knows not to-day what he suffered 
yesterday, and docs not anticipate any suffer- 
ing to-morrow. He lives his life and returns 
to the elements. What that general state 
may be, I know not. It may be a state of 
joyous vitality like ours, only adapted to the 
L59 



As It is to Be 



animal nature it represents. But I cannot con- 
sole you with any definite statement. Faith 
in God's goodness must here be your logical 
stay. For if you are so solicitous as to the 
happiness of the animal creation, remember 
you could not be if it were not the spark of 
God in you that makes you so ; and He, in 
His infinite solicitude for all creation, must 
have, in some wise way, provided for exact 
justice and true loving-kindness in this as in 
other matters, although neither you nor I can 
understand it." 



160 



CHAPTER XVII 

RE-INCARNATIOX — CHILDISH AGE 

I CONFESS that the last chapter was 
a distinct disappointment to me. I 
wished to be told that I can find my 
pets living spirits in their own form, as im- 
mortal as I am ! But I desire now to con- 
tinue the conversation by asking if there is 
such a thing as the re-incarnation of the 
human spirit. That is, if an adult die, can 
his spirit, under any condition whatever, enter 
the infant form of another human being and 
live a second human life in this world ? " 
" Xo. He cannot." 

" Then the keynote of Buddhism and of 
Brahmanism is a false note?" 

"No, not wholly. I, at first, was at a loss 
to answer your direct question, for it implied 
so much, but I think I can make you under- 
stand. Your soul naturally abhors the idea of 
11 161 



As It is to Be 



re-incarnation, and I feared if T admitted the 
possibility of such a thing you would shrink 
out of harmony with me. But there is a 
certain re-incarnation of which the idea of a 
personal and physical re-incarnation is symbolic 
or emblematic. 

" It is the hint of the truth which has led to 
a doctrine which is practically false, but spirit- 
ually true. The re-incarnation of mind can 
take place in a certain way, one of which you 
are at this moment illustrating. I cannot live 
again upon the earth in a human physical form, 
but my thought embodies itself and will live, 
nevertheless, by means of you and your pen." 

" The Buddhistic scheme appears to have 
been formulated to explain the existence of 
evil, and especially hereditary evil, and to 
emphasize the substratum idea of evolution, 
progress." 

" Yes. But the imagination of the East 
runs into the material far more easily than 
the West, much as they boast of their spiritu- 
ality. Their ' Nirvana ' is not our Heaven, nor 
can they conceive of such. The Occidentals 
162 



Re-Incarnation — Childish Age 

arc the active, the Orientals are the passive. 
Yet here opposites meet." 

" You mean that spirit is spirit and goes to 
spirit, no matter what it believes ? " 

" The division is peculiar." 

" What do you mean by that ? " 

" I mean that according to the cultivation 
of the intellect in a right direction, so the 
advance is more rapid." 

" But if the morality be equal ? " 

" A good man may be a fool." 

" True, but we none of us suppose that a 
good man shall not have the highest reward, 
let his intellect be what it may." 

" Does he in your world ? " 

"No. But every one feels that by rights 
he should." 

" We spoke in this way because we wished 
to sec if we could mislead you." 

" Well, did you sec ? " 

" Wc see we cannot, for you seem to have a 

keen perception of righteousness. Let me say 

now, once for all, that man is born once only, 

lives one human life, becomes wholly spirit, 

1G3 



As It is to Be 



shuffles off all evil, is graded in knowledge 
and glory according to his character of good- 
ness, and rises to perfection rapidly or slowly, 
as intellect and goodness are combined in him 
harmoniously. But you seem to think that all 
people must instantly enter upon equal knowl- 
edge when they reach Heaven, or else they will 
repine and be or feel misused. 

"Ask your maid to-day if she has an ambi- 
tion to understand Euclid, or to be able to an- 
alyze a Greek root, or do a problem in geometry, 
or read the stars as a seer. Such a proposi- 
tion would astound or frighten her, and if she 
thought she should ever be forced to do it she 
would cross herself and cry to all the saints. 
Yet think not that she will enter here only to 
find dissatisfaction. Knowledge is a growth, 
and the desire for knowledge is an outgrowth 
of that growth. Ambition for perfection is 
the flower of the growth of that growth, and 
not every one attains it in a thousand years. 

" Yet all are content in simply growing as 
God wills, and the joy of every step and every 
condition, each after its own kind, is a crescendo 
164 



Re-Incarnation — Childish Age 

of multiplied sensations and pleasures. Your 
sense of justice, absolute justice, is so strong 
that you cannot bear to think that one human 
being enters Heaven with any better chance 
than another. 

"But since Heaven is joy, and is taken in 
by each to his or her fullest capacity, satisfy 
your mind. Hold up a cup as boundless as 
space if you will, and ask the Infinite to pour 
out His whole spirit to fill it, so that you and 
He are one ; but do not think such a feeling 
could be comprehended by the mass of people, 
who would shudder at the boldness of the 
thought and faint at the mere hint of so stu- 
pendous a crisis. Each to his own in full 
satisfaction. So is our life here. Ask no more." 

" I may feel quite safe, then, that I am not 
ever to be obliged to re-incarnate myself in 
another human form and perhaps lead the life 
of an Italian woman, or a Hindoo girl, or even 
a Frenchman ? " 

" Neither you nor any human being need fear 
it, nor anticipate it. The ilesh is but the dress 
of an entity. That entity attains individuality 
1G5 



As It is to Be 



by its envelope, in which it lives its human, 
earthy span. Once cast aside, the spirit's 
needs are over, as far as your world is con- 
cerned. It has been born on the human 
plane and starts from there. Why should it 
be born over and over? What advantage 
would it gain ? " 

" Why, they teach that in every new incar- 
nation the spirit throws off a little more evil, 
until finally it becomes saintly and ready to 
enter — peace." 

" The necessity does not obtain." 

" You say that the entity becomes individ- 
ualized by entering its envelope of flesh. Did 
you not state some time back, that had I never 
been born I should still have been a fact, an 
entity, no matter into what shape I was 
transmuted ? " 

" Certainly, but you might not have been 
an earthly, human entity, or have started on 
the earthly plane. My statement is that you, 
as an idea-fact uttered by God, are individual- 
ized and made distinct and separate by means 
of the fleshly envelope in which you dwell and 
166 



Re-Incarnation — Childish Age • 

experience the vicissitudes of existence. If 
you had not entered the earthly form you 
might have become one of a different order of 
beings. Your entity would have remained 
intact — your dress would have been of a 
different cut and fashion." 

" Having, then, become individualized, does 
the soul ever lapse into the general mass 
again, so as to need to again become individ- 
ualized, either here or hereafter ? " 

" No. As God has made you a woman 
spirit, so you will remain a woman spirit to 
all intents and purposes. What is beyond 
perfection I know not — there may be much 
— but up to the perfection of the human spirit 
it preserves its selfhood and identity intact. 
No spirit can tell you more than this." 

" What truth is there in the Theosophical 
doctrine of Karma ? " 

" None at all. It rests on their doctrine of 
Re-incarnation, which is utterly wrong." 

" But let me state the doctrine of Karma as 
I view it. Maybe there is truth in it ! They 
say, in brief, that all our acts in this life build 
167 



As It is to Be 



up for us good or bad conditions in our next 
life on earth; that a true, noble, unselfish 
life in this world gains a reward of pleasure, 
agreeable circumstances, and joyous relations 
the next time we come back here ; therefore 
our characters will always improve, until we 
are at last so pure that we have built up a 
Karma which shall keep us out of any 
further re-incarnations. » While, on the con- 
trary, persistent evil will at last lead us to 
complete annihilation, or hell." 

" There can be no argument about Karma 
when there is no such thing as re-incarnation. 
We have told you that the sum and result 
total of the goodness which you have built up 
within yourself, in one sole existence in the 
body, is all that goes with you, or rather is 
you, in the world of spirit which you enter. 
That good, little or great, is all there is left of 
your earth experience, and it at once proceeds 
onward, multiplying itself forever. 

The good conditions, the joys which sur- 
round it, are the outcome of its own righteous- 
ness, and abound more or less, according to 
168 



Re-Incarnation — Childish Age 

the capacity to enjoy, comprehend and make 
use attained by the living spirit. There is no 
looking backward or going over again an 
existence in a material body, once the spirit is 
wholly escaped from it, and that process never 
takes any noticeable length of time." 

" Then all this teaching of morality because 
it will be well for us in our next life here 
is so much useless and pernicious chatter ? " 

" It is pernicious because it is not true, and 
equally so because it holds forth rewards for 
goodness in a material sense and suggests inev- 
itably material riches, comfort, and pleasures, 
to the exclusion of higher motives." 

" If I were capable of appealing directly to 
Theosophists all over the world, what argu- 
ment could I bring to bear to convince them 
that they are laboring under a delusion ? " 

"Truth. It will infallibly make its way. 
The belief in re-incarnation and Karma, intro- 
duced into the Western world and eagerly 
accepted here, is powerful in two ways : it is 
new to most Europeans and Americans, and 
those to whom it comes are anxious and asking 
169 



As It is to Be 



for something which shall satisfy their reason 
or seem to make a way of escape from the old 
forlorn doctrines of eternal punishment. 

"Many conscientious persons believe that 
real justice demands the punishment of evil 
persons, even to the spirit's death, but they 
shrink from it nevertheless, and if they could 
see one loop-hole through which the light of 
Hope should stream, they would set their eyes 
and hearts upon it with joy and thanksgiving. 
This, re-incarnation offers, and Karma is the 
means by which they think it is possible for 
even the most evil to repent. It is a sort 
of probation that the gospels they had been 
accustomed to do not offer. They say to 
themselves : ' Here is a chance that Calvinism 
does not give me. In the orthodox religion I 
have but one life, and my judgment comes on 
that. My poor little seventy years settle my 
fate. But if I can be re-incarnated many 
times, each time gaining a little, my judgment 
will be put off indefinitely, and it will depend 
upon me, through a long series of experiences, 
to determine my own final destiny. 
170 



Re-Incarnation — Childish Age 

" ' That certainly, that is the must reasonable 
and logical. I cannot blame my Maker, then, 
for He gives me plenty of time ; while, as the 
Christian religion stands now, He practically 
gives me no time at all. It is too short. It 
is not reasonable. I do not believe it. I will 
accept this better and older theory ! I will 
be a Theosophist ! ' 

"But neither of these doctrines is true, and 
you can see for yourself that Thcosophy is 
merely a makeshift, a putting-ofF of the dread 
day when some settlement, some definite con- 
dition must be entered upon by the soul. Its 
motive, just like the motive underlying the 
idea of hell, is fear, and brings forth slavery. 
The root idea of both these doctrines is ' save 
yourself.' But, as I have told you before, the 
necessity docs not obtain. You are put here 
in your world principally to accomplish Divine 
Diffusion. God multiplies Himself in you. 
You are one of the sparks of Eternal joy 
thrown off from the great centre of life. The 
abundance of material presupposed a culmina- 
tion of it in a link between material and spirit. 
171 



As It is to Be 




You are that link. You are the 
clasp between and the lock which 
holds the material to the spir- 
itual, In you both are 
united, and — 

" The pur- 
pose of THUS 

LINKING SPIRIT 
WITH MATERIAL IN THE UNION SEEN IN THE 
HUMAN OR INTELLIGENT BEING, IS TO PRO- 
DUCE INDIVIDUALIZED CONSCIOUS- 
NESS, WHICH, LIKE OUR FATHER HlMSELF, 
IS UNLIMITED IN POWER, AND CAPABLE OF 
PERFECTION, WHICH IS BLISS. 

" This is why man is bom. 

" God's essence could not be contained self- 
ishly within itself ! It must of its nature per- 
petually diffuse itself and spread abroad ever 
more abundantly its overflowing love. For 
this purpose individual consciousness was 
necessary, so that each individual should par- 
take of and be one with the Supreme. 

"Having attained individual consciousness 
by the process of linking the material with the 
172 



Re-Incarnation — Childish Age 

spiritual in an organized form, you henceforth 
go on consciously progressing back to the orig- 
inal source. Material being the lowest mani- 
festation of the Divine idea, you start from 
that lowest plane and go on and on up and 
towards your source, completing the circle, 
until you reach the highest plane in which 
pure essence is ! 

" But there is no reason, logic, or sense in 
the idea that this process must be gone over 
and over. The thing desired has been accom- 
plished once for all, and God needs not to 
go over and correct His work. His law has 
brought your consciousness into being. That 
fact is sufficient. Given a consciousness, then 
the cultivation of it, — the broadening, lifting, 
strengthening of it ! But all it was ever put 
into a fleshly envelope for was to personalize 
and give it a separate entity ! That done, 
why more ? 

" Imagine a crystal ball cut into thousands 

of facets. Each facet reflects in little what 

the whole ball reflects in full. They arc of the 

same material, have their similar lights and 

17:] 



As It is to Be 



shadows, are iridescent with the same rain- 
bow hues, and take upon their surfaces the 
same pictures. They are permeated by the 
same light, glitter with the same brilliancy and 
form, and by their very individuality enhance 
the glory and beauty of the whole. All is of 
the same nature, but broken up into individual 
forms upon the surface, so that, look on which 
side you may, you recognize the exquisite 
order, purity, beauty, and glory by means of 
just the individualizing facets. 

" Now, imagine a crystal ball perfectly round. 
Not a line of engraving or cutting, no shade 
of alteration on one side or the other. It is, 
indeed, a pure, lucid, beautiful object; but 
what has become of its sparkle, life, glory 
of color, reflection of images, rainbow hues, 
and response from one brilliant point to an- 
other ? It is, one might say, a ball of dead 
matter compared with the globe of speaking 
expression before observed ! 

" So, my child, in an image infinitely poor 
and dull we try to bring practically to your 
mind the cutting up and diffusion of the essence 
174 



Re-Incarnation — Childish Age 

of our God. Out of Him cometh all we arc ; 
of Him wc are all made ; lost from Him we 
can never be ; one with Him we must always 
remain ; and it is our joy and His love and 
grace which make each one of us a facet on 
the face of His universal globe, reflecting both 
exterior and interior, and responding to the 
light within and without Him and between 
eacli other. For His nature cannot abide that 
He should be a dead, flat, undiversified entity, 
existing selfishly in and for Itself, conscious 
of Itself alone, and holding Its powers in the 
limited and egotistic circumference of an un- 
animated creation. 

" Bless God that you are what you are, — a 
living part of the Intelligence in which you 
move. Whatever trials you may suffer, per- 
haps they may be the polishing brushes of cir- 
cumstance rubbing you into a finer brilliance. 

" But if all your life you remain a dull and 
unreflecting facet in the diamond crystal of 
being, at least . remember that in being a 
facet at all you have attained forever your 
conscious identity, and God will see to it 
175 



As It is to Be 



that in the perfection of progress you shall 
shine like the rest." 

" Speaking of the vicissitudes of life in a 
fleshly envelope reminds me of the last years 
of my admirable grandfather Pond. Every- 
one knows his saintly character, his bright 
intellect, his religious ardor, his personal 
honor and integrity, his manly love of in- 
dependence and all the virtues. About 
two years before he died his mind became 
unbalanced and childish. The quick wit 
died out, the sparkling intelligence withered, 
the flower of his manhood decayed, while the 
poor, patient, sick body lingered on. Tell me, 
I beg, tell all who watch, with grief and dis- 
may, the beloved aged lose their faculties and 
shrink into childish senselessness, what be- 
comes of the living spirit during the months 
when only silly or idiotic stupor rewards the 
eager and longing watchfulness of their friends? 
Where does it go ? What becomes of it? " 

" It comes here." 

"What!" 

176 



Re-Incarnation — Childish Age 

" I said very plainly it comes here. Of 
course, you have always supposed that until 
the body lies cold and dead the spirit never 
deserts it, but it does frequently, although 
never wholly. You may have noticed that 
old people who appear very childish up to 
dying, suddenly regain all their faculties at 
the last, and make some rational remark that 
lingers in the astonished memory of friends 
for many years. Your grandfather is here 
with us, and, if you choose to question him, 
will answer you." 

" I am awestruck ! " 

"Do not be. He is right. I was not 
wholly with you in those days. I was re- 
ceiving the holy baptism of a new process, 
a new birth, which with me lasted long. It 
was strange, — a dual consciousness, a knowl- 
edge that death is simply the decay of the 
body, and may occur as a mere incident, while 
the spirit looks calmly on." 

"We felt, when at last your body lay at 
rest, that you were far away, mounted into 
the very Heavens." 

12 177 



As It is to Be 



" I was so." 

" I wish, my dear grandfather, or my dear 
Voice, that I could get the idea of weirdness, 
of ghastly, ghostly strangeness, out of my head 
in thinking of death. I have seen people die, 
have helped them die, if I may say so, giving 
my prayers and my courage to them through 
the hand I held ; but when the last breath 
came, the little bubbles of air came from the 
lungs for the last time, I have felt unearthly, 
weird, cold, disconsolate, deserted, horror- 
stricken. Such I believe to be the feeling 
of almost every one, let faith be never so tri- 
umphant or religion never so pure. What can 
you say to relieve mankind of this instinctive 
dread, doubt, shrinking from the final scene ? " 

" We can only reiterate the fact of Life. 
Think of Life in its fullest significance — Life, 
with all its emotions, passions, hopes, ambi- 
tions, joys, in full glow and play. Think of 
yourself on the sunniest morning you ever 
saw, when your health was perfect, your youth 
and beauty at their best, your fortunes com- 
fortable, your secret pleasures sweetest, your 
178 



Re-Incarnation — Childish Age 

very feet too light to walk, so it seemed you 
must fly, and your voice at the top of its bent 
singing for very gladness. Is there anything 
weird or strange about that picture ? Think 
of Light, golden, pure, scintillating in radi- 
ance. Everything clear to the senses, no 
dimness or doubt about it. Think of laughter 
and friendliness, intercourse with friends and 
delight in foes, the absence of pain and the 
absolute lack of all fear. This is your weird, 
awful death. This it is to die and leave the 
earth. How ghostly it all is, is n't it? I 
would I could convince the waiting, dying 
world of this. Why will ye have cars and 
hear not ? — eyes and see not ? " 

" Ah, but the eyes of the body arc so blind, 
the ears so slow of comprehension ! l>eforc 
you, great spirit, passed from earth, had you 
not the natural and proper fear of death 
which secures self-preservation ? " 

"Yes, my child, but I had also a hope, a 

sweet and constant belief in the restoration 

of my faculties to their highest powers. In 

my inner being, which at the last was dull and 

L79 



As It is to Be 



stupid in its outer expression, I already knew 
that death is Life, — the only life, the way to 
life. Proclaim it and prepare for this life of 
which ye shall all partake." 

" I believe it is my grandfather who has 
dictated to me these last paragraphs. May I 
ask, then, how it is that a weak, or feeble, or 
aged body loses its spirit to a certain degree ? " 

" It is a natural law that spirit seeks spirit 
— like seeks like. The more enfeebled the 
body, the more worn and aged the material, 
the less power it has to attract and hold the 
spirit, which is ever struggling to be free. 
From the time of birth the body and the 
spirit are in a state of struggle — one to leave, 
the other to keep. For this reason food is 
constantly necessary to rebuild the system, 
which, once too much weakened, is immedi- 
ately conquered by the spirit and thrust off. 
The material life of man is a long birth, as it 
were, an embryo state in which the spirit de- 
velops, ever longing to be born, and when the 
body becomes much enfeebled it frequently 
happens that all but an animating principle 
180 



Re-Incarnation — Childish Age 



detaches itself and enters a new state, border- 
ing on spiritual consciousness, but not fully in 
harmony with spirit and liable to be recalled 
if by any chance the powers of the natural 
man are re-enhanced by any means, or the 
great throes of material being momentarily 
demand the re-entrance of the soul. 

" I referred to the fact of evident conscious- 
ness and rationality at the last being observed 
in persons long sunken in childishness. The 
last painful effort of nature to re-assert itself 
is then so strong, so violent, as to compel the 
fleeting spirit to re-assume the fading garment 
of mortality for a brief period." 

" But is not the state of the spirit painful 
and restless, uncertain and out of harmony 
with itself and its environment when half de- 
tached and half not ? " 

" There is no pain in spirit. I cannot suf- 
ficiently describe such a state as it enters. I 
can only say that no evil of any kind, either 
of feeling, or perception, or sensation, can dis- 
turb the spirit. It is the body which is con- 
stantly disturbed and out of harmony with its 
181 



As It is to Be 



environment. Outside of the body there is 
nothing to dread. The worst there is you see 
right before you in the deficiencies of the 
senses, the physical pain, the loss of memory, 
the stupor which fills you with grief and anxi- 
ety. In so far as the spirit escapes from all 
this, it is at rest." 

" And if one has been extremely active and 
keeps his faculties to the end, or if one is sud- 
denly struck out of physical life in the vigor 
of his strength, what happens then ? Is it a 
shock to the soul as well as to the body ? " 

u The peace of God, which passeth under- 
standing, ever abideth with the spirit of man." 

11 1 cannot sufficiently thank you for this 
encouraging information. Many hearts will 
be relieved by it." 

" That is precisely what we desire and what 
it is your mission to fulfil. You are to enjoy 
and spread joy. That is your motto ; and let 
me tell you, little child, there is more good 
fortune to you in this than you wot of. Good- 
night." 



182 



CHAPTER XVIII 



" I AERMIT me to ask you something 
wr** about the music in heaven. One of 
-■"- the greatest delights of earth is its 
concord of sweet sounds. Yet the beautiful 
music now elaborated by means of every kind 
of instrument has been a long and patient 
growth from the beginning of the history of 
man. In the National Museum at Washing- 
ton is a magnificent collection of almost all 
known instruments, and in many libraries are 
preserved the MSS. of music written by the 
most celebrated composers. Are all these to 
be of no value in the after life ? And how 
about the voices of dead singers, the songs of 
birds ? Do these too become ' lost chords ' ? 
How can a song that is sung, an opera that 
has been finished be reproduced as it was 
heard on earth ? If the masters live shall 
is:; 



As It is to Be 



their works live with them ? I doubt not that 
we shall have music, but will it be played by 
means of mechanical instruments ? Some 
spiritualists believe that if you long for a 
piano, but are deprived of it in this life, in 
Heaven the piano will be provided." 

" There is nothing material in spirit. So 
we may smilingly state that a drum, a brass 
instrument, a piano, a music-box, have no 
place here." 

" Of course no human can conceive of mu- 
sic without some means by which to make it." 

" We have means, only not your means." 
| " What are your means ? " 

" Ears to hear, or rather the perception of 
music in ourselves. On the sensitive atmos- 
phere of spirit all sound is thrown, as on its 
atmosphere also all scenes are photographed. 
All music which has ever been sounded eter- 
nally sounds, and we have but to choose what 
we will hear, to hear it, excluding what we 
do not desire to hear." 

"This is still done by the simple laws of 
attraction and attention, I suppose ? " 
184 



Music, Art, Memory 



" You are beginning to be an apt pupil." 

" But this is not wholly satisfying. It is a 
pleasure to hear excellent music, but to some 
people who have genius the pleasure of com- 
posing and playing music is infinitely greater. 
Yet how many, sick from the music in their 
souls, die with it unuttered from lack of 
opportunity, teaching, the lack of the in- 
strument itself. Shall they go forever 
ungratified ? " 

" There is no such thing here. l Ungrati- 
fied ' ! Why, such a word does not belong to 
our language. We do not understand it." 

" But if there are no instruments to play 
upon, how shall these unhappy ones play ? " 

u Upon their hearts. Out of it are the 
issues of the soul. A spirit's genius finds its 
true expression within itself, and out of his 
own being come the harmonies, which re- 
quire no instrument for translation. Music 
is thought expressed by means of a material 
in the world. Music in Heaven is thought. 
The moment the musical thought is uttered it 
expresses itself, instantly, in the tone, length 
185 



As It is to Be 



of tone, harmony, chord, scale, and so forth, 
where it belongs. On earth a man must prove 
he is musical by taking a violin in his hands 
and using the bow across its strings. When 
people hear it they are convinced that he is 
musical and can play the violin, because they 
can see and hear him do it. 

"Now, when that same man comes here 
and continues his musical thought in reference 
to the violin, he utters himself in the tones of 
the violin by means of what we may call 
violin-thoughts, and at once it is patent to all 
that he is capable of violin-music. 

" As we have told you before, material is 
only the expression of the spiritual, and while 
the violin may be shattered, the music fled, to 
all mortal ears, the man's body cold in his 
coffin, and the memory of his playing wiped 
from the minds of his generation, still all that 
he ever thought in musical exercise of his 
powers remains intact, to be used, improved 
upon, and enjoyed, with all the ardor of an 
added comprehension. 

" It is upon this same principle that painting, 
186 



Music, Art, Memory 



sculpture, poetry, architecture, and the accom- 
plishment of talent or genius in any direction 
becomes easy where we dwell. There is no 
necessity for the instrument, opportunity, 
teaching, when what is in a man or woman 
expresses itself without the aid of brushes and 
canvas, chisel and hammer, pen and paper, 
stone and mortar, and always only at its 
highest and best." 

" But I cannot quite understand how a 
sculptor, for instance, can express a statue 
out of himself so that any one else can see it. 
Do you mean to say that if Hiram Powers 
were talking with me in the spirit world, that 
if he had a fancy for a new statue of Eve, 
he would begin to look like his conception of 
that statue, so that for the time being I 
should see him practically turned into the 
statue itself? " 

"No. The utterance of thought in spirit 
takes form, lie docs not himself change and 
turn into his thought, lie utters himself in 
form, instead of in words which express form. 
He might sit with you there all day at your 
L87 



As It is to Be 



desk and describe to you in words what his 
conception was ; but the more he told you of 
the lines and curves, the attitude and drapery, 
the expression and character, the more con- 
fused you would get, and under no circum- 
stances could you see that statue as he saw it 
in his mind's eye. But here he would think 
his statue into form without any description 
at all, and you would perceive it just as he 
thought it." 

"And, having done so, would the statue 
remain permanently, so that I or many might 
see it over and over, or would it, having 
accomplished its mission of being seen by me 
at the moment, go back into Mr. Powers' 
brain, or dissolve, or disappear ? " 

" If mortal thought is eternal, certainly spir- 
itual thought is so. Heaven is made up of 
thought utterance in every possible form, and 
each of these is enjoyed forever." 

" But to return to music. Much musical 
thought must be unmusical beyond expres- 
sion. It is here. A perfect clamor of hideous 
sounds arises from this city every day, only 
188 



Music, Art, Memory 



mercifully hidden from the ear of the public 
by enclosing walls. What becomes of the 
practisiugs and experiments of beginners and 
would-be artists in Heaven ? If all their 
cornet and fife and drum utterances resound 
through the eternal vault, I should prefer 
some other abode." 

" You make us laugh." 

" I am glad of that — but what is your 
answer ? " 

" Righteousness extends through the domain 
of spirit from end to end. You have heard a 
scientific man say that a careless conclusion 
is actually immoral. Artists feel that a dis- 
cord of color is artistically immoral. It 
touches them to a sense of indignation in a 
master, and pity or contempt in a pupil. In- 
tellect is moral or immoral, although it is not 
generally considered so. The abstract opera- 
tions of a mathematical problem contain 
within themselves the elements of righteous- 
ness or unrighteousness. 

" Now, when the soul arrives here, all that 
is immoral and unrighteous, even in the intel- 



ls ( J 



As It is to Be 



lectual, scientific, artistic sense, is done away 
with. Whatever is done, is done rightly and 
in the best way. It may be a very simple 
thing in itself, but whatever the act, so far as 
it goes, it goes righteously and in the proper 
direction. 

" Since, then, the law of harmony operates 
continually and no one can escape from it, any 
more than a mortal can escape from the law of 
gravitation, — whatever is uttered, is uttered 
harmoniously, and it blends itself with the 
general harmony without noticeable or un- 
pleasant sharpness, the will of the observer 
being the focusing point, which draws it into 
distinct and separate being for him. So if in 
a Heavenly audience, which had assembled to 
hear a Heavenly oratorio, one should desire to 
hear only the flute obligate, he would hear only 
the flute obligato, while the rest would hear 

it all." 

" If all music uttered in Heaven is perfect 

as far as it goes, I can conceive of no higher 

pleasure than attending an oratorio. But this 

expressing one's self — this uttering of one's self 

190 



Music, Art, Memory 



in form — leads me to another phase of life 
there, which in my imagination troubles me 
much. 

" You remember St. Paul said that ' now we 
see as through a glass, darkly, but then face 
to face.' This prophecy has always been a 
bugbear to me, and I imagine that other 
people shrink from its idea. Nobody wants 
to be seen face to face. There are secrets, 
errors, temptations, shames even, in every life, 
no matter how pure, which all would instinc- 
tively hide or blot out forever. The struggles 
of the soul against the enticements of the flesh 
are, in some of the most magnificent charac- 
ters, of such a nature, that to have them 
exposed to public view and criticism would 
be a humiliation, a source of hurt pride and 
bitterness which would undo all the good 
the experience had done. 

"Must we, then, believe that that sacred, 
hidden portion of ourselves and our histories, 
which we guard with our very lives here, 
must immediately stand the (ire of Men 
thousand witnesses/ and the sins we may 
L91 



As It is to Be 



have hoped were blotted out by the grace of 
God appear and confront us with their hor- 
rible realities on the eternal canvas of spirit, 
painted irrevocably for all the Heaven to 
read?" 

" No. God is not so mean as that. Not 
that you meant to cast a slur on His justice 
and honor, but that you felt that perhaps that 
is the only remedial punishment which would 
be absolutely just But look at it. Can you 
conceive of a more unjust proceeding than to 
have, as you say, ' ten thousand witnesses ' to 
look at all the actions of the past and judge 
them and you by them ? To be sure, in that 
case you could read their lives also, but that 
would be a poor consolation. No, child. I 
will show you how impossible such a state of 
affairs here would be. 

" In the first place, it is against the law of 
harmony. Sin, struggle, temptation, error, 
are no part of spirit life. Neither are the 
reflections of sins, struggles, temptations, er- 
rors, thrown on the eternal canvas. The 
camera is not sensitive to them. Photograph- 
192 



Music, Art, Memory 



ically, they 'won't take' They belong to 
material things, and never can leave their own 
element. Yon will remember that it was 
written that 'Satan shall be chained for a 
thousand years.' The real meaning of that 
saying I have just interpreted to you. The 
evil elements within human nature were 
personified under the name of Satan ; and 
feeling intuitively that the time would inev- 
itably come when these should be wholly cast 
out and forever imprisoned in the material, 
their proper abode, the prophet pictured the 
casting of Satan into the bottomless pit by the 
angel of Heavenly Goodness. For all out of 
harmony must stay out of harmony. There is 
no entrance into the kingdom of God except- 
ing through the door. The door is spirit, and 
all spirit is pure. 

" Again, even in your mortal form, God has 
given you the protection of silence. Unless 
you choose to tell the secret in your mind, 
none can know it. You are hedged in by the 
beautiful economy of an unreadable intellect, 
suited admirably to a brain covered by a bony 
13 L98 



As It is to Be 



and fleshly envelope. They may saw it open, 
the secret escapes. They may draw the brain 
out and examine it microscopically, yet it 
holds its tongue. Every protection is granted 
you in mortal life to preserve your individuality 
intact. You do not know what John thinks 
or does, when he conceals it. Houses, rooms, 
all the limitations of civilization, are accesso- 
ries and helps to keep his thinkings and 
doings unknown when he wishes to keep 
them so ; and the fact is, you do not know 
John very well, although you have lived in 
the house with him for ten years. 

" Imagine, then, the still more beautiful pro- 
tections which surround the soul when it has 
entered into a state where spiritual law prevails 
and everybody obeys it. It is not like natural 
law, which everybody disobeys. On earth it 
seems as if men spent their time pulling and 
tugging against the very laws that are their 
true life. It is right in its way — it means 
education, domination, progress. But here 
we obey, not only because we are willing to, 
but because we must, and wish to, just on the 
194 



Music, Art, Memory 



same principle that you breathe. You must 
breathe, you cannot help it, and you wish to 
breathe. If you could not breathe you would 
be in agony until you could. That is our life 
in all its ramifications. We must be good, 
and we wish to be good. If we could not be 
good we should be in agony until we could 
be good. We wish the sweetest, highest, 
noblest pleasures for all others — all others, 
understand — and we must do our share to 
cause such pleasure. If we could not wish 
and do so we should be in agony until we 
could. So on. 

" Now, is this compatible with the view of 
the sins of human life being put before us ? 
Remember, we all breathe in God and take 
pattern from Him. He sets the fashions here 
— bless His holy name! — and even He is 
voluntarily subject to His own laws. 

"Then, finally, nothing can occur in spirit 
which does not work out an advantage. On 
earth thousands of projects arc worked and 
the end is no visible advantage. Here visi- 
ble advantage is the immediate result of all 
195 



As It is to Be 



things done. The universe of spirit is sweep- 
ing on towards perfection. Each step leads 
on. There are no retrogrades. Why, then, 
should that mortal episode, which is past and 
done with, be dragged into general inspection ? 
What lesson could it teach here ? It taught 
its lesson of experience there, and led the 
perpetrator to do better, or eschew it, perhaps, 
but here we cannot eschew what enters not 
into the life, and we cannot do better where 
each one, according to his or her capacity, is 
doing the best possible. 

" Put aside, then, the thought that that lack 
of charity, that ignoble suspicion, that unkind 
word, that or this or the other error, fault, sin, 
in your life-history shall be made in the after- 
life a subject for comment. You come here 
as a whole, not in parts. There lies the 
error of human judgment. So many have 
been taught that this or that error or sin is 
judged separately, or rather, that an account 
is kept of the sins and the good deeds, and 
on striking a balance, the soul is punished or 
rewarded. This is not true. Life, both on 
196 



Music, Art, Memory 



earth and in spirit, is a progress. Experience 
is the teacher, God the helper. Now, from 
sin to sin yon pass, and from virtue to virtue 
you pass. It is a constant mixing and min- 
gling of good acts, bad acts ; good motives, bad 
motives, mixed motives ; hereditary and almost 
compulsory errors, hereditary and almost com- 
pulsory virtues ; tendencies arrested and devel- 
oped; imagination warped or broadened ; and 
all this going on in the mass of surrounding 
influences, visible and invisible, which act 
upon, pull, push, twist, lower, lift, by beat 
ing on nerves and muscles, digestion, brain, 
intensifying emotion, lowering the vitality of 
both body and intellect, vitiating the will, 
and pouring on the receptive spirit the mil- 
lion daily drops of vicissitude which go to 
make the deep current of human existence. 

4< Now, if the being, under these overwhelm- 
ing circumstances, keeps a general tendency 
upward, aspires instead of grovels, has faith 
instead of yielding to scepticism, and battling 
along does gradually build np B character ol 
good, here he comes with that good, pure and 
197 



As It is to Be 



simple, leaving all that went to produce it still 
at work, still active for others in the material 
world. 

" And if he has struggled in vain, and his 
tendency to evil and the material has been too 
strong to build up a substantial character of 
good, still God helps, — for he is a spark of 
God, and must forever preserve his identity 
intact ; and although he may come here a mere 
infant in goodness, all the evil in his life that 
built up even so much (and under certain cir- 
cumstances to build up so much is a wonder to 
the angels) is also left behind him to operate 
with the general mass on others ; and weak, 
fainting, feeble, into the land of Life he comes, 
to be cherished in his little goodness with as 
much tenderness and overflowing love as if he 
rode upon the wind, in a current of Attraction, 
to the Throne. 

" Goodness is goodness here, much or little. 
A diamond is a diamond on earth, and you 
cherish it according to its size. Here each 
diamond is a gem struck off from the Crown 
of Joy, and its value lies not in its size, but in 
198 



Music, Art, Memory 



its identity. The fact that it us a diamond at 

all is enough." 

" But we ourselves can remember the past, 
can we not, and communicate it to others if 
we please ? There are very many secret feel- 
ings that I have had in my life, which I should 
not want to forget, and still would not wish 
others to know; also equally exquisite emo- 
tions which I should like to impart." 

" If you keep your identity it is Bupposable 
that you keep your memory. I have told you 
before that you remember everything. It is 
here that punishment conies in, if you can 
call that 'punishment' which is, after all, a 
beneficence. For whatever is remedial in its 
tendency, no matter how bitter in actual expe- 
rience, is a benefit to the soul beyond expres- 
sion. The knowledge of his past life, with 
the results to his soul in the new life, is to 
the criminal one of the remedial punish- 
ments which urge, uplift, brace him to effort, 
advancement, high aims. 

"Many a soul, feeble in goodness, ignorant 
of the blessings attendant on its increase, 
199 



As It is to Be 



might lie dormant, passive, unkindled so far 
as itself were concerned, were it not for 
memory, which was the birth-gift of earth. 
But now, abhorring evil, shuddering at vice 
in himself, memory sends him on towards 
perfection with an almighty levership. Ah ! 
it is so difficult to put into language the true 
condition of the spirit at any phase of its 
existence, — yet we do our best." 



200 



V 



CHAPTER XIX 

FEAR 

OICE of the Silence ! you say that 
in the spirit world there is no such 
thing as fear. I cannot sufficiently 
congratulate you on that. Fear in its various 
forms seems to be one of the greatest tor- 
ments of earth. Can you tell me what is its 
nature and why it exists, and if there is any 
way for an intelligent being to be rid of it ? 
Excessive timidity seems to be one of the 
darkest clouds over happiness." 
" Fear is in its nature harmless." 
"What?" 

" I repeat, fear is in its nature harmless. 
It is the abuse of fear that makes it harmful. 
Fear, like any other 'evil' element of the 
earth, is 'earthy/ and only adapted to earthly 
conditions. It is not experienced in spiritual 
conditions, because there is no necessity for 
201 



As It is to Be 



preserving and conserving life, energy, power, 
existence. Pain we know not, nor decay, 
nor deterioration of any faculty or pleasure. 
Nothing wanes here. Everything waxes. But 
with you self-preservation is the first instinct, 
and underlies the possibility of a material 
evolution. Were it not for this instinct of 
self-preservation no race of organic beings 
could ever have come into rational existence. 
Now, fear is the harmless, nay, the beneficent 
force which helps this instinct of self-preser- 
vation and keeps it alive and active. The 
fear of an animal that preys upon it keeps a 
rabbit cautious, and gives it power to secrete 
itself or scamper off at the approach of an 
enemy. 

" So throughout all Nature. Fear is the 
check and the incentive — the one to prevent 
from rushing into danger, the other to plan 
and build and act against danger — which 
preserves the species and the genus, the whole 
race from utter annihilation. Coining to man, 
fear is a beneficent power until abused. God 
never created in Nature or spirit an evil which 
202 



Fear 

was an evil until abused. Every force is 
beneficent if you use it properly, and if you 
look at it closely you find it not only benefi- 
cent, but preservative and tending towards 
the best and highest good of everything to 
which it is applied. 

" To illustrate : Man's fear of fire prevents 
immense conflagrations. Why? Because his 
fears cause him to take precautionary meas- 
ures. Man's fear of public opinion prevents 
crime and folly to an almost unlimited extent, 
when the whole mass of the population is con- 
sidered, for he dreads exposure, disgrace, and 
punishment. Indeed, take fear quite out of 
the world, and anarchy, bloodshed, riot, and 
gradual extinction would come to the race. 
For instance, to bring the illustration quite 
home to you, what do you think would hap- 
pen to-night if fear were instantly eliminated 
from the heart of every person in your city ? 
Every man would instantly feel a new and 
unwonted freedom. The angry man would 
beat his wife; the man bent on revenge would 
murder ; men on duty under superior officers 
203 



As It is to Be 



would ' take a night off ; ' burglars would in- 
fest houses; men's passions let loose would 
rape and seduce ; women would fly to meet 
illicit lovers ; servants would cease to attend 
to their duties ; people would walk off docks, 
bridges, high places, or cross in front of horses, 
engines, or place themselves in the most dan- 
gerous situations physically, morally, and men- 
tally. There is no end to the revolution 
which would occur at once if fear were taken 
out of the world. Sharp-cutting truths would 
be uttered and life-long enemies made ; secrets 
would be told and lives blighted ; in fact, we 
cannot fully picture what this city would be 
in twenty-four hours. 

" Thus you see, with a little thought, that 
whatever is, is, so far as it is used properly, 
right. But there is an abuse of fear which 
should be overcome and driven out of every 
heart. It is needless fear, — fear for to- 
morrow, anxiety, doubt, those forms of fear 
that almost invariably deal with the future. 
Men do not fear the past ; that is over. They 
fear the results of the past as happening 
204 






Fear 

in the future, — results of mis-steps, errors, 
crimes, which they have not yet 'paid for,' as 
they call it. 

"Again, fear is abused, instead of used, 
when unfaith creeps in, or faith in coining evil 
hereafter, or doubt of God's eternal mercy and 
love, or belief in torments and everlasting 
damnation. Religious fear in any form what- 
ever is the abuse of fear, for there is no fear 
in true religion, nothing to fear hereafter, and 
fear has no place beside so holy a word. Re- 
member the saying/ Have no anxious thought 
for the morrow;' yet who is there who does 
not have anxious thought for the morrow I 
Few who reach mature life. Every woman 
fears sickness, accident, trouble to her near 
and dear ones, if not to herself. Parting and 
separation are full of human fears. Basil 
is crowded with fears ; in fact, almost every 
situation in life has its fearsome side. Every 
situation should, but only so far as rational 
precaution goes. ' Do right and fear not.' 
That is a notable motto. Use your privilege 
of fear just so far as reasonable judgment 
205 



As It is to Be 



tells you it is available to protect the interests 
of yourself and your friends, but, having used 
it to that extent, carry it no farther. The 
moment you do you abuse the gift and delib- 
erately turn it into an evil. 

" Thus, in a business complication, use your 
best knowledge of affairs, act as honorably as 
if you were dealing with God, and let it turn 
as it will. Whichever way it turns, it will be 
the best way. For if you put into it only the 
elements of good, it cannot go against your 
best interests. You may lose a fortune in 
spite of your best endeavor, but you will be 
certain to find that sometime, somewhere, 
either on earth or in heaven, you have won, 
gained, advanced, in ratio to what true good- 
ness you put into the whole matter. Remem- 
ber that goodness, righteousness, enters into 
business talent as well as into business moral- 
ity, into calculations of finance as well as into 
every other phase of earthly experience, and 
in so far as you preserve the integrity of your 
honor, you gain inevitably, even though you 
are reduced to poverty. 
206 



Fear 

" Again, you may be watching by the sick 
bed of a loved one; do everything in your 
power to arrest the disease and fear not. 
Whichever the result, if you are truly in har- 
mony with God's will, and offer no resistance 
of fear, doubt, distrust, you may be sure Al- 
mighty goodness will see to it that the best 
and only the best for all concerned shall come 
out of the experience. 

" But this is only the most general promise 
of courage. We may easily indicate how lack 
of fear actually helps where anxiety, doubt, 
and worriment might wholly defeat your own 
purpose. As I say, having done all that true 
fear demands, in the way of precautionary 
measures, if you then utterly drop fear, you 
become calm, quiet, cool, brave, strong, pow- 
erful, influential, and a force. Your own 
calm mind, rationally active, throws out 
healthy currents filled with vital forces from 
your well-conserved will. These strong, in- 
visible forces of your controlled and positive 
thought, act upon the thoughts of others and 
control them. The vigorous, BWeeping cur- 
207 



As It is to Be 



rent of your manly or womanly freedom from 
the nervous excitement, even prostration, or 
overstrung, tense mental and physical condi- 
tion, — a current which moves with a grand, 
silent flow amidst the petty, shifting rills of 
thought about it, — will gather them in and 
move them on in the direction you wish to 
go, and instead of being one among a thou- 
sand as anxious and wrought up as yourself, 
you will be the directing force, 'which shall 
either swing them away as obstacles of no 
moment, or carry them on to a success. 

" So also with sickness. Trusting in God, 
doing your utmost, fearless because sure that 
God permits no evil to His children, your 
spirit will breathe over the patient its own 
vitality and vigor. Your very atmosphere 
will breed life in the diseased body, by 
contact, of strength, of purity, faith, power, 
and out of the very calmness and surety of 
your soul your loved one may be saved. It 
is this that Jesus meant when He cautioned 
His disciples not to fear too much. Fear 
beyond its proper use is weakening, deaden- 
208 



Fear 

ing, discouraging, and evil. The life of the 
spirit is crushed in a man who fears. For 
the spirit cannot exist in an atmosphere an- 
tagonistic to its own quality. But oh ! how 
beautiful is the first flight of a fearless spirit 
upwards! It is out of its element when 
plunged in fear, as much as a bird would be 
when plunged in water. It must struggle 
with all its might to live in a body drawn and 
quartered by fear. For fear is a torment be- 
yond words, and is not in any sense spiritual. 

"Cast out, then, this evil the moment it 
begins to be an evil. Some one once said to 
you in a wise way, ' Trust as if it all (101)011(10(1 
upon God. Work as if it all depended upon 
yourself.' Live day by day, moment by mo- 
ment, as if nestled against God's very heart, 
for there is no moment that you do not lio 
upon that Universal Breast which boat- for- 
ever with the throbs of infinite love. If you 
knew God had His arm right around you and 
was speaking the word of Victory for you at 
every moment, you would have no fear. 

" Rest assured this is the absolute fact. The 
14 209 



As It is to Be 



moment you will lean upon that Arm, the mo- 
ment you will listen to and obey that Voice, 
that moment Victory, in some form, awaits 
your every effort, and fear is needless. It is be- 
cause the spirit is fully conscious of this at all 
times that no fear prevails. It rests with you 
yourself, with each one of the men and women 
and little children who are alive to-day, 
whether they shall be successful or not, ad- 
vance or not, grovel or not, aspire and rise or 
not. In the one case they can love God so 
perfectly as to cast out all fear ; in the other, 
they can love earth and themselves and what 
fleeting pleasures they can weakly gain, so 
much that fear shall dodge and pursue them 
to the very grave." 

" Then rational courage is a power ? " 
"Yes, thought of any kind is a power. 
You, perhaps, do not realize that when you 
sit by ' your own self,' as you like to say it, 
and think, that whatever you think is making 
its impression on hundreds of other minds ? " 
" No, I never thought of such a thing." 
" It is high time you did. You certainly 
210 






Fear 

would be more careful what you thought if 
you knew somebody heard it and would shout 
it from the housetops in ten minutes. Now 
would n't you ? " 

" I certainly should, on the same principle 
that we never speak as freely before twenty 
as we do before our intimate friend." 

" The actual words of your thought are not 
heard, of course. But each thought has an 
invisible influence. It is a power. It im- 
presses itself upon the spiritual atmosphere in 
which all Nature is immersed, and it carries 
with it a peculiar force to act upon all other 
minds, as their thought acts upon yours. 

" So, if your habitual thoughts are pure, en- 
nobling, trustful, intellectual, free from low or 
mean intentions, selfish aims, false hopes, false 
theories, frivolous, inane, and silly devices and 
amusements ; if courage and integrity, honor, 
charity, chastity, tenderness, sympathy, right- 
eousness occupy your mind, you send out from 
your room, your bed, your carnage, your 
seat, your passage along the street, indeed, 
from every place where you stand, sit, or lie, a 
211 



As It is to Be 



strong, steady, positive force for good, clearing 
the moral atmosphere about you, lighting up 
the darkness of melancholy, discord, grief, 
weariness, hopelessness, fear, wrathj revenge, 
cruelty, meanness, and guilt, which unfortu- 
nately are mixed and mingled in the spiritual 
atmosphere of all cities. Remember this: 
Every thought is a power. Make it a power 
for good." 



212 



CHAPTER XX 

ASTROLOGY 

"f | ^HERE is no phase of occult re- 
search which does not interest me. 
-•- Teach me, then, if you can, my kind 
Voices, whether there is any truth in the so- 
called science of Astrology. It may be super- 
stition in me, but I have known of and believed 
in several predictions made by this method 
which seemed remarkable, both for accuracy 
and for knowledge. Yet it docs not seem 
reasonable that Jupiter should make a man a 
ruler ! Do the stars and planets have any 
influence on the lives and careers of men ? " 

" No, not directly. 

" That implies that indirectly they do have 
such influence." 

"Man is influenced by all things, visible 

and invisible. We cannot say the stars and 

planets do not influence his life, because they 

do — most magnificently. Where would your 

213 



As It is to Be 



Astronomy be, for instance, with no remote 
suns and beautiful planets to observe and lift 
the soul Heavenward ? And in many other 
ways they influence him. But if you ask us 
whether his individual existence, as regards 
his fortunes, marriage, business career, or other 
incidents of his earth-life are brought about 
by the influences of the planets acting directly 
upon him, we answer no, for man is a creature 
possessing free will, and is under no influence 
of any such character. 

" Astrology is practically a chapter of coinci- 
dences, built up by general prognostications of 
effect from cause, and helped by the eloquence 
and cunning of the astrologer playing upon 
the credulity and superstition of the believer. 
Coincidence has a remarkable effect on the 
human mind, although Nature herself is one 
continued mating and ( putting together of two 
and two.' The fact is, that so few cases appear 
in exact sequence of an astrological prophecy 
and so many fail or are so absolutely ignored, 
that in the long history, to which its votaries 
turn in triumph, the things it did succeed in 
214 






Astrology 






predicting, set over against the things it did 
not succeed in predicting, are as the first 
turned leaves of the autumn against the 
background of solid green." 

u One should put no dependence, then, upon 
the so-called laws of Astrology, and pay no 
attention to the planets in the ascendent at 
birth?" 

"As an amusement it may do no harm, but 
to build upon it would be misleading. For 
instance, supposing an astrologer should tell 
a woman that at forty-three her husband 
would die, and that at forty-five she would 
have an offer of marriage from a man who 
would prove to be a villain, but that she was 
fated to marry him. And further, supposing 
her husband should happen to die when she 
was forty-three and at forty-five some gentle- 
man should offer her his hand. What do you 
suppose would be the effect on her mind of 
these two simple coincidences? She would 
certainly suspect the man of being a villain, 
no matter how excellent his character, and 
her whole judgment of the situation would 
215 



As It is to Be 



be warped and biased by something that in 
reality had no meaning, influence, or truth, 
save as a very general guess, which happened, 
in very natural sequence, to prove correct. 
For why, if her husband should die at any 
time, should she not, after a proper time is 
passed, receive addresses from gentlemen ? 

" So these charlatans thrive on the very 
simplest and easiest deceptions. Few stop to 
think that whatever is predicted must hit the 
case at some time or in some way, and in the 
many things that are always told, one at least 
will appear to ' come true/ Then they are 
convinced. Do not have to do with this 
folly in any earnest way. It is beneath the 
dignity of an immortal intellect." 

" Nevertheless, all literatures of all times 
and many peoples abound with allusions to 
the influence of the stars on human destiny. 
How is it that falsehood is so persistent? 
Why does not enlightenment wholly explode 
such falsities ? " 

" Give it time. The theory of re-incarnation 
is one of the prime beliefs of millions, yet 
218 



Astrology 



there is not the least truth in it. Man 
does not advance in truth in proportion to 
his mental capacity any faster than Nature 
advances in evolution of higher forms. If 
it takes him four thousand years to wholly 
taboo a false religious doctrine, how long do 
you think it will take him to know the truth, 
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth ? 
The earth will be without form and void 
before he knows that. Yet the stupendous 
difference between a cultivated intellect and 
an oyster, for instance, is apparently as infinite 
as is that between perfection and mortality. 7 ' 

" But it seems strange that in so many 
recorded instances, deaths, insanity, accidents, 
catastrophes and favorable events to men and 
nations have occurred as predicted. I think 
I must insist on asking once more, is there 
any truth in Astrology?" 

"No." 

"Can a man predict future events by means 
of a horoscope or diagram of the star- 
applied to one's birth ? " 

" No." 

217 



As It is to Be 



" It has been done correctly." 

" Not by those means." 

" By what means, then ? " 

" Either by human reason and calculation, 
by reading physiognomy, form, and character, 
or by clairvoyance, or by coincidence, or by 
mind-reading, or by transference of magnetism 
and mental impression, or by clairaudience. 
But not by calculation Of the planets. Man 
has free will, and is not subjected to natural 
or material forces, save in a general way. 

" The moon affects the tides, and his ship 
may sail at three o'clock instead of seven 
o'clock. Had he waited until seven the 
captain would have just escaped a gale. As 
it was he ran into it, his vessel foundered, 
and he was drowned. But to say that he was 
influenced by the moon directly, instead of by 
his human reason, or to say that he could not 
have sailed at any other hour if he chose to 
do so, because he was born under such and 
such an influence of the moon, is folly." 

" You say that man is not subject to natural 
and material forces, save in a general way. 
218 



Astrology 



Will you not please to explain what you mean 
by ' a general way ' ? " 

" I mean that fire will burn him ; if he falls 
from a high place he will be injured; if he 
stays under water too long he will be drowned ; 
if lightning strikes him he will probably be 
killed ; if a weight falls upon him he will be 
crushed ; if he defies the winter he will prob- 
ably have a cold ; if he defies the intense heat 
of summer he will probably be sunstrnck. 
He is always operated upon, and thus influ- 
enced, by the forces of Nature, visible and 
invisible, but these do not influence his spirit 
in any phenomenal way. 

" The laws of cause and effect operate in 
him steadily, but that being born under 
Jupiter will make him rich, or under Venus 
will make him poetic, or under Mars will 
make him a soldier, is not true. Of the 
masses and millions who never so much as 
knew what Astrology meant, thousands have 
been born ' under Mars' without a single 
soldierly quality or military connection, and 
thousands more, born under the very finest 
219 



As It is to Be 



aspect of Venus, never composed a line of 
poetry, never painted or had anything to do 
with the fine arts, and only plodded on ' un- 
known, unhonored, and unsung,' in the daily 
round of drudgery, or savagery, or stupidity, 
which is the lot of so many poor mortals on 
your earth." 

" Yet great men of all ages have believed 
in and consulted Astrology." 

" True. It all arises from the longing, the 
craving, to know the future, and is only a more 
exalted form of divination by means of tea- 
grounds, apple-seeds, chickens' ' lucky-bones/ 
and other simple tricks. It is on the same 
principle that people cry out, 'Do not open 
an umbrella over your head in the house, it is 
unlucky ' (what about the time when they 
had no umbrellas ?) ; and ' Do not sew any- 
thing which is on your body, it is unlucky ; ' 
and ' Never pare your nails on a Friday, it is 
unlucky ; ' and ' If you put on your stocking 
wrong side out don't change it, it is unlucky.' 

" All these things are mere notions, of no 
moment or consequence, and do not affect 
220 



Astrology 



one's fate by a hair. I cannot illustrate the 
fallibility of Astrology in any better way than 
by calling your attention to the fact that, no 
matter what is predicted, it must happen 
somewhere, at some time, for predictions are 
invariably based upon experiences of the past ; 
and if any prediction were sifted to the bot- 
tom it would be found to have been caused 
by means of one or the other powers I have 
mentioned, or else to have been so applied by 
those who had knowledge of some subsequent 
occurrence as to appear to have fitted the 
case. 

" Like all superstitions, Astrology appeals 
to just those elements in human nature which 
are most easily misled and confused, exagger- 
ated or intensified; while few ask a question 
of an astrologer without secretly wishing be 
may predict the truth. This very wishing and 
believing leads a weak person to do the very 
thing that would naturally bring the eircuin- 
stance about, and the result is that a coinci- 
dence may occur which will convince against 
all argument. We state positively, however, 
221 



As It is to Be 



that there is no more truth in the so-called 
science of Astrology than there would be in 
such as this : ( If an owl shall hoot seven 
times of a night on one side of a house, a 
member of the family will die within seven 
days, seven weeks, or seven months/ — a sen- 
tence that I have this moment originated." 

" I have been somewhat superstitious in 
that way myself. On the night before I sailed 
for Bermuda, an astrologer, who could n't have 
known anything of me, told me that I was to 
sail for a tropical island inside of three days, 
and that my husband would follow me later, 
since he had decided that very day to go. 
On arriving at a friend's house I found a 
telegram saying that my husband would fol- 
low me in a fortnight. Up to that day he 
could not have decided, for some business 
reasons. I went, and he went, precisely as 
the man predicted. How did he do it ? " 

"He was clairvoyant, or else read your 

mind. Why, child, your whole atmosphere, 

thought, intent, purpose, were permeated with 

the thought of going and of your husband's 

222 



Astrology 



going. If he was the least sensitive he could 
not fail to get the impression. So it is in gen- 
eral. People go to the astrologers, either out of 
idle curiosity or else intent upon some certain 
topic. A shrewd reader of character, impres- 
sionable and even partially clairvoyant, will 
be exceedingly stupid if, after a little experi- 
ence, he cannot satisfy his client witli a story 
which shall call out unreasoning admiration. 
But let us drop the subject, which is unpleas- 
ant and useless. We prefer to get out of the 
plane of the ignoble and false as rapidly as 
possible, for to dwell on it is to us ail 
actual trial." 



228 



CHAPTER XXI 

PROVIDENCE 

" T ^ ^ as a ^ wa y s keen a na PPy thing for me 

I to believe that God loves each of us as 

-*- if each were the only child He has. 

Aware that the general pronunciation of the 

above word does not convey its full value, 

Prov-i-dence — viz., to provide — I am anxious 

to ask The Voices if there is such a thing as a 

real, personal Providence manifested towards 

individuals by the Deity." 

"Yes, there is." 

" How can that occur without partiality ? " 
" How does the sun shine fruitfully on one 
man's crop and blastingly on another's ? " 

"Why, it depends upon the nature of the 
soil, the crop, the abundance of water and the 
care with which the field is cultivated, whether 
the sun shall blast or render fruitful. If the 
soil be well selected in reference to the seed 
224 



Providence 



put in, and all other conditions arc carefully 
looked out for, the crop will be a success." 

" Well, so with God's providences to indi- 
viduals. If they, with all wisdom and human 
foresight, together with the proper conditions, 
do all in their power to bring about success, 
they succeed." 

" Not always ! Many and many a man, 
with all possible care and foresight, has failed 
to succeed because of the lack of what seems 
to be just this personal providence of which I 
speak. The sun won't shine on his field, do 
what he will. Clouds constantly obscure the 
sky, and he fails for want of sun. The records 
of biography show that man after man of 
genius has gone down to a pauper's grave in 
obscurity and misery ! Where was the Pr 
dence in their case ? " 

" That they were men of genius ! Else you 
would never have heard of them. Do you 
think their compensations rested in line clothes, 
rich food, and the ease of your world ? These 
might have stilled the very poem in its birth. 
God's providence to such lies in themselves, — 
15 225 



As It is to Be 



the seeing eye, the hearing ear, the responsive 
heart, the intellectual greatness, the pure 
spirit, the noble achievement. What was it 
to them when they came here, endowed with 
the glory of their inner powers, that for a few 
brief earthly years they suffered to bring those 
powers into condition, force them into action, 
and accomplish the works that set the world 
cheering with wonder and admiration ? So, 
in differing degrees, of all men." 

" What I meant, especially, was something 
a little different to tnis. I meant, for instance, 
in answer to prayer, does God assist a man (or 
woman, if you please) in the accomplishment 
of any material business, desire, or ambition, or 
grant things prayed for, by an interposition in 
the individual's favor ? " 

" No, God never interposes between His 
own laws. He will not reverse any law 
in favor of anybody. Prayer will not effect 
any change whatever in the natural sequence 
of affairs." 

" Then what is the use of prayer ? " 

" There are many uses, but I take it you 
226 



Providence 



mean peculiarly in reference to a providence, 
I said prayer effects no change in the affairs 
of men, as simply a request that such a change 
shall occur, unaccompanied by any effort on' 
the part of the prayer-maker. Prayer for a 
bicycle, without making the slightest effort in 
any way to get one, stands but one chance to 
be answered. But if prayer for a thing is 
accompanied by mental, physical, or other 
effort on the part of the prayer-maker, a bicy- 
cle may be forthcoming in so rapid and Bur- 
prising a manner as to seem l a direct answer 
to prayer' or ' a providence.' " 

" You say that to pray for a thing simply as 
a request, without any effort to get it, st<t>i>/s 
but one chance of being answered. What do 
you mean by that ? " 

" To pray for it at all is a mental effort to 
gain it. Now, the invisible power of thought, 
as we have intimated, is often, and almost 
invariably, stronger than people suppose. To 
pray is to will more or less determinedly. To 
will is often to accomplish on the spot. The 
conditions must be harmonious, and to the 
227 



As It is to Be 



righteous and pure in heart the conditions are 
apt to be harmonious, so that to will, and to 
express that will in prayer, thus at the same 
time exalting the nature into the spiritual 
realm where will is the basal quality of power, 
is to draw forces into a focus towards the thing 
willed for ; and the result is, that it is done, and 
the astonished and grateful recipient calls it a 
providence, and blesses God for interfering in 
his behalf and answering his prayer, whereas 
God had no more to do with it than the per- 
sistently carrying on of His laws, which, if in- 
telligently taken advantage of, may always be 
made to favor the individual ; as a broad cur- 
rent will carry a floating canoe, strongly pro- 
pelled by human arms, more rapidly and well 
than it can carry a water-soaked log, drifting 
aimlessly along and striking against every 
snag ! 

" Do we wonder that an Indian in his swift 
canoe can outstrip the fallen branch that 
simply lends itself to the laws of gravitation ? 
Is it a providence that he makes twenty miles 
an hour down stream ? 

228 



Providence 



"So with intelligent effort — mental, physi- 
cal, moral, spiritual! Unless a man puts a 
shoulder to the wheel, the stuck wagon, 
floundering in the mud, cannot be gotten along. 
For human life is always going through diffi- 
cult and muddy ways, up-hill and over streams 
and across marshes and over mountains, — an 
infinite variety, calling for wit, wisdom, will, 
tact, capacity, endurance, persistence, cour- 
age ; and if you add these to prayer, belie vo 
me, your ' go-cart' will be trundled along — 
yea, to the very end." 

" Then Providence, in the sense of a special 
care bestowed on an individual in the direc- 
tion of saving from danger, restoring property, 
assisting in accumulating material things, pre- 
venting sickness and death, allowing escape 
from an accident, or other phases of seeming 
especial favor, docs not exist ? " 

" It docs not from the outside, as you mean. 
You are your own Providence. You haw 
been given a universe of things and forces t<> 
manipulate, according to the purity and intel- 
ligence and strength of your own will. The 



As It is to Be 



invisible forces are as potent, as active and as 
real as the visible forces. Your bodily con- 
sciousness dictates how you shall use your 
material forces, and your spiritual conscious- 
ness dictates how you shall use your spiritual 
forces. Either one or the other predominates at 
each present moment. Frequently, in prayer, 
the spiritual force of your will predominates. 
This draws to your aid the invisible forces 
which you unconsciously manipulate, and 
what you strongly wish for succeeds, and 
you master it and hold it and have it. 

" It is very much like a problem in arith- 
metic. You desire to conquer the problem, 
which exists abstractly in a realm that your 
mind seems vainly to penetrate. You cannot 
see the answer, or prefigure it. But you 
now will to know it, and at once have taken 
the first step to know it ; then you make your 
calculations, use your figures, and one by one 
you master each, and at last accomplish the 
right answer. You marshal invisible forces 
to your aid, which cannot fail to illumine 
your mind as you persist. At last you step 
230 



Providence 



into that abstract and unknown realm that 
seemed so vague, and find yourself at home 
there." 

" According to this, wherein comes the 
Fatherhood of God? To believe God <! 
care for me is the sweetest thing in all my 
conception of my Maker. My chief gratitude 
to Jesus Christ is, that He proclaimed that 
God is our loving Father, that we are of 
much greater value than many sparrows, that 
even the hairs of our heads are numbered, 
that He loves us with an everlasting love, 
that we are His children, and that we can- 
not suffer without His sympathy ! " 

" In what, of all this, is there any need of 
providences ! Do you w T ish to prove God's 
fatherhood by the exceptions He makes in 
your favor? For instance, if you intended 
going on a ship that was burned at sea and 
all souls lost, but were prevented from embark- 
ing and were thus saved from death, would 
you consider that a token of God's loving < 
over you ? " 

" Many would." 

231 



As It is to Be 



li How about those who were lost ? " 

" Yes, I know. It is absurd, for that would 
not be fatherly love at all, but just jealous 
partiality towards His favorites." 

"And about obtaining material blessings? 
Have you not murmured when you have 
seen truly selfish and unprincipled people 
rolling in wealth while some poor saint 
went hungry ? " 

" Yes, indeed!" 

" You did not see any providence in a cold- 
blooded capitalist making another million by 
defrauding the poor ? " 

" No." 

"And you wondered that some of those 
poor souls did not escape the loss of their 
little all by means of a providence ? " 

" It would have seemed just." 

• • So it would, child, if there were any such 
thing as especial providences, interfering, dis- 
posing, organizing, changing, re-ordering, and 
re-moulding the sequent events of active exist- 
ence. Were there such intervention mortals 
might well cry out at the injustice of God, 
232 



Providence 



which strips the miserable to add to the ease 
of the surfeited ! Thus you see that by look- 
ing at the other side of the question, the idea 
of a Providence to anybody has its veto plainly 
discernible within its own essence. To favor 
one at the expense of another, by direct inter- 
vention, wholly overthrows all idea of the 
freedom of will, the law of cause and effect, 
and the impartiality of God, thus wiping out 
the fatherhood and love of God, to make 
Him an arbitrary ruler, whiffling this way 
or that, according to the ' prayer of faith ' 
of any child who may be praying at exact 
opposites with any other child ! " 

"And yet, strange coincidences do OOCBT, 
wonderful answers to prayer, strange escapee 
from accident, amazing benefits to those at 
their wit's end how to live, etc., etc." 

"The sweet gratitude in human nature, 
which is a Godlike Godpart of the soul, 
attributes these to the all-loving rare <»f the 
Father for His children. It is a beautiful 
thing to watch the humble thankfulness of 
the world in receiving these favors with an 



As It is to Be 



immediate thanksgiving to a supernatural 
power ! But while that glorious Power is 
truly to be praised forever, for having so 
wisely arranged the universal laws and 
human beings that they may have har- 
monious and successful mutual relations — 
to attribute direct interposition to either 
increase, assist, re-direct, or reverse those 
laws, to produce any circumstance whatso- 
ever of what seems to be a providential 
incident, is to do wrong, since it is the 
subversion of truth and the acceptance of 
ignorant falsehood. 

" Try to have a broader conception, first of 
God, then of law, and then of yourself. The 
one, eternal, is your source ; the second, ever- 
active, is your preserver ; the third, immortal, 
is possessed of powers that reach out and on, 
back to Perfection, even the Father, of which 
it is the Child." 

"Nevertheless, I think the world will be 

slow to accept this impersonal governing, this 

self-providence, which, while true, is cold and 

lonesome to the heart. Say what one may of 

234 



Providence 



truth, if it is abstract — a truth of law rather 
than of love — it seems to fall short, and leaves 
the soul craving and hungry. I want to feel 
when I speak to God that He hears me, 
and that His soul responds to my soul, and 
that the ecstasy of union which I have some- 
times felt between Him and me has been a 
real spiritual union of affection and reciprocal 
feeling, as a child may glow with reverent 
admiration of her father, and the father glow 
with tender pride in his child." 

" In what wise docs the question of Provi- 
dences enter here ? " 

" Why, you say prayer is but an expression 
of the will! — that it effects nothing unless 
followed or accompanied by effort." 

" Oh, no! we did not say that! We said 
prayer had many uses. Do not mix up your 
ideas. 

" Providences can only rbfbb to mate- 
rial THINGS, — THE THINGS OF Till. EARTH, 
THE ACCIDENTS, INCIDENTS, AND PHE- 
NOMENA OF THE WORLD! TllKY A UK RE- 
LATED SOLELY TO THE CONSERVATION OF 

285 



As It is to Be 



MATERIAL INTERESTS, THE GOOD OF THE 
BODY AND THE THINGS OF THE BODY. 

* When a prayer about any of these earthly 
things is made it is a prayer which must 
involve the laws by which earthly relations 
are maintained, and is thus necessarily amen- 
able to those laws, or else unsuccessful. 

" For instance, you may pray that your trip 
to the West may be taken with safety and 
comfort. By thus praying, whatever invisible 
powers may be manipulated by your spirit 
will be drawn favorably towards you, and if 
you select a good train, over a well-established 
road, you will probably get there in safety. 
Nevertheless, you may be burnt alive in your 
sleeper, for you are no more exempt than 
another from the natural sequences of law. 
But in prayer which seeks no material bene- 
fit, there is no supposition of a Providence'' 

" Then God does hear and does answer ? " 

" Aye, child ! The universe thrills with the 
joy and trembles with the bliss of the com- 
munion of the child-soul with the Father- 
soul, throughout eternity. The ecstasy you 
236 



Providence 



have felt of pure and holy communion with 
God is the best reality in all existence, and 
will forever continue in beauty, purity, joy, 
and uplifting, until you disappear in the 
Celestial Light whither all souls tend." 

" What are the invisible forces which we 
may unconsciously manipulate by will, prayer, 
thought?" 

" They may be the affections and cares of 
spirit friends, granted the privilege of watch- 
ing over you ; or they may be the innate 
powers of your own soul — as the impressing 
of your desire upon other persons, the suggest- 
ing and persuading by means of your thought, 
the hypnotic forces of your personal mag- 
netism, the intuitive perception of the cir- 
cumstances and characters of others, the 
faculty of clairvoyantly looking forward, and 
other powers of which you are unconscious, 
but which you can focus into a strong, active, 
aggressive motor to work out yom desire. 
Will is the root of this. Use it firmly, wisely, 
righteously." 

" Unrighteous will succeeds." 
237 



As It is to Be 



" Certainly, on earth, where there is a choice 
of evil and good, strong unrighteous will is as 
potent as the other." 

"The result? " 

" Is inevitable. Such do not develop good, 
and so come to us weak, ignorant, infantine 
in true life." 

"I think, then, that as regards our earthly 
existence we should say with the Christ, ' Thy 
will be done,' and then use our own will with 
all our might to get what we want ! " 

" If you say it reverently and act it right- 
eously, you will have struck the keynote of 
earthly prosperity. God's will is in the laws 
which He has beneficently established, and He 
gave you your will to use upon those laws, 
with all intelligence, for your own benefit. 

" Before we leave you to-day we wish to cor- 
rect a phrase which you have used, ' a truth 
of law rather than of love.' There are no 
truths and no laws which are not founded in 
and conserved wholly of love. Love rules 
everything, wisdom guides everything. If any 
truth seems abstract to you, you can always 
238 



Providence 



fall back on the consoling thought that, since 
it is truth, it is love manifested in righteous- 
ness. You also have a latent thought in your 
mind, that if there are no especial providences 
there can also be no miracles. You can apply 
all we have said of Providences to miracles 
and find they both come under one law. A 
so-called miracle is the unusual manipulation 
of things by a well-ordered will. As for 
' natural ' miracles, as that fire will not burn 
or water drown, there is nothing of the kind." 



289 



CHAPTER XXII 

THOUGHT 

DURING the writing of this manu- 
script I have placed it in the hands 
of some of the brightest and most 
cultivated people of thjs country. They have 
all read or heard it with interest. Some have 
believed that the Voices are actual spirits, who 
impress me with the words that I here put on 
to paper. Others have said that they believe 
I have a " dual consciousness/' and that these 
writings, which I call interior Voices, are in 
reality but the answers that I give to myself 
out of the stored knowledge, imagination, or 
fancy which, through a somewhat general 
course of reading, I have absorbed. Some 
call it my higher self. 

Many ask me what I believe myself is the 

true origin of the answers to my questions. 

I can only answer that I do not know. I 

know that these answers sound in my brain 

240 



Thought 



in about the same tone of voice which I use 
myself. I know that when I ask the question 
my mind is frequently blank as to the reply. 
Often I have a preconceived opinion which 
I find is wrong (if the Voices are right), 
and although I feel as if I were talking with 
another person, and am impressed that I do 
not answer my own questions, still I do not 
know who it is who answers, save in the very 
first I imagined it might be a very dear friend, 
from his description of his death, and later on 
I think it truly was my grandfather Pond who 
gave me a few sentences. 

Otherwise I cannot conceive who or what 
the Voices are. They appear to me as thought 
I do not physically hear them, but I do get 
thought which appears to me far above my 
own capacity and often in exact opposition to 
my own opinions. 

Since, then, neither I myself nor any one 
else can positively determine what is the true 
origin of this work, I will now ask t\w Voi 
themselves about thought, and let them say 
what are its powers, visible and invisible. 
1G 2 1 1 



As It is to Be 



Answer : " We are quite willing to aid you 
in discovering the true origin of your work, 
and by those who have the least intuition it 
will be readily perceived that we are not 
' stored knowledge, imagination, or fancy/ 
We are truth, and we assure you that we 
shall impress the world as being true, for 
our thoughts are not as their thoughts, 
neither can they as yet comprehend them. 
Thought is immortal and eternal. It is the 
' I,' the dominant ' I ' of everything created. 
Without thought, you, man, animals, trees, all 
the order of Nature, are but things. Destitute 
of thought, or foresight, or will, or design, or 
intuition, the universe were a dead blank, a 
nothing. It would never have existed. 

" God infused thought when He blew His 
breath into the nostrils of the primeval races. 
He infused thought when He fanned into 
eternal flame the sun of your universe. He 
endowed with His thought the shell you 
pick up on your seashore to hear the hol- 
low roar of the main sound roundly in your 
ears. 

242 



Thought 



" It is thought that has uttered forth and 
brought into being all that is or ever shall be, 
and the roots of the tree of life are imbedded 
in the fecund soil of Eternal Thought, which 
sends its sap to every branch and twig, 
and blossoms in the petals of every flower. 
Thought is motion, force, gravitation, and 
every law which, by years of mortal striving, 
has slowly been brought in the cognizance 
of mortal mind. Withdraw for one instant 
the thought which holds the stars in place, 
and space would become a place of inextri- 
cable confusion, running riot in eternal mutual 
destruction. Thought is the regulator, the 
harmonizer of all conflicting elements, for in 
its potent grasp it holds worlds and suns and 
universes with the case of infinite power. 

"Take thought from yourself and you be- 
come a thing. What are you without thought I 
A shell, a case, a garment, soon repulsive, 
soon dust, soon nothingness. Out of the Infi- 
nite Thought you came, back to the Infinite 
Thought you go, leaving that nothingness 
which soon your material form becomes, 
248 



As It is to Be 



and soaring above the thing you once so 
loved. It is as an outcome of thought that 
man exists, and his utter dependence upon 
thought is an idea he would do well to more 
fully appreciate." 

"All we actually are, then, is what we 
think?" 

" That is all. For the outcome of thought 
in deeds is a mere expression. If you do 
anything whatever, thought was the force 
that compelled you to do it." 

"It is the motive, then, not the deed, that 
counts ? " 

"Yes, but be very sure that the motive 
which appears clear and fair to you is not 
mixed." 

" Who shall sift a mixed motive? " 

" Yourself shall." 

" Is there no other Judge or judgment ? " 

" Nay. Law is law. Whether you wish or 
no, you must abide by it. The evil motive 
in you is forever cast aside, the good is for- 
ever taken up higher. Beware lest the evil 
should predominate. But again to thought 
244 



Thought 



and thoughts. For some days you have 
been questioning in your mind what is the 
force of thought ? " 

"Yes, that is true. I have wondered if 
unuttered thought is a force, and if so, is 
there anyway to avail one's self of it for one's 
advantage ? " 

"You can. Every person can who chooses 
to do so. The average thought of the world 
to-day is what one may call desultory, casual, 
without any especial end or aim to it. Go 
down on to Broadway and enter a horse-ear. 
What harmony of thought obtains there ? 
One man thinks of stocks ; one man, of 
drugs; one, of his sick wife; one woman, 
of how to match a ribbon ; one child, of 
a grammar lesson ; the driver, of his hoi 
and yourself, of the last book you have 
read, or whether you can secure tickets for 
a matinee. It is a mixture which is simply 
beyond definition. There is no sequence, no 
mingling, no harmony, no leading from one 
idea to another. It is an ollu-poilrhht of 
incongruous elements. There is apparently 
246 



As It is to Be 



no possible association of ideas in the whole 
community save in audiences, colleges, and 
schools, where people come together for the 
acknowledged purpose of listening to a cer- 
tain theme. 

" But be not deceived. Nothing exists out- 
side of law. There is design and oversight 
for ' every idle word ye utter.' Each has its 
appropriate place, and wings its way with un- 
swerving course to its one and only position 
in the general mass. You look out at night 
and view the myriad stars and seem to see 
no regularity to their positions. You can- 
not understand why some are grouped, some 
single, some by twos, and some in clusters. 
The astronomer can give you many ideas, but 
even he cannot see the true meaning of this 
conglomerate mass, although his sagacity has 
reached the knowledge of a harmonious law. 
So you vainly try to probe the meaning of 
human thought, still more ignorant that it, 
too, is governed by harmonious law and 
seeks its own as surely as the law of 
gravitation causes planet to seek sun and 
246 



Thought 



bend in its orbit with obedience to the 
central force. In thought, as in everything 
else, like seeks like. Melancholy thoughts 
seek the stratum of melancholy. Wise, 
studious thoughts seek the stratum of wis- 
dom. Gay, sunny thoughts go to the stratum 
of cheerfulness with a joyous bound." 

" What do you mean by stratum or strata of 
thought ? " 

" The atmosphere of the world is permeated 
by a spiritual atmosphere, which is, as it were, 
in layers or strata, and each of these layers is 
made up of certain spiritual idea-facts, which 
are represented with you by thoughts ex- 
pressed in words. Your thoughts form a 
connecting link between yourself and the 
range of thought that corresponds to your 
feelings and spiritual condition." 

" Do we send our thoughts out to that 
layer which matches them ? " 

" Yes. Projecting yourself by means of 

your thought, you may enter the stratum of 

misery and foreboding and inevitably absorb 

and retain the forces which that stratum of 

217 



As It is to Be 



thought holds. Projecting yourself by means 
of your thought you may enter the realm of 
luxurious, artistic, refined, cultivated thoughts 
and instantly absorb and retain for yourself 
some portion of the forces of those strata. 

" Seek poverty and sorrow in your thought, 
and you become just so much poorer and 
more sorrowful in actual being. Seek a 
successful stratum, carry will with your 
thought, take attention and attraction on 
either hand, and you enter the stratum of 
well-being, and the longer you exercise the 
forces of will, attention, and attraction in this 
stratum, the more you absorb and retain of its 
beneficent sway." 

" Do you mean to say that if I persist in 
thinking of myself as being happy, rich, 
independent, wise and cultivated, I shall 
actually become all these ? " 

" Your tendency will certainly be in those 
directions, and the forces of those strata of 
thought will react on you to exactly the extent 
you not only attract but apply them. Do not 
think that mere sitting still and thinking you 
248 



Thought 



are rich will actually make you so, without 
further effort of your own. To really will, 
attract, and set your attention on prosperity is 
to carry out to the best of your means the 
wisest plans you can conceive to secure it ; 
and having a cheerful faith that you will suc- 
ceed puts you in harmony with every force 
which sweeps toward higher and better things." 

"What is the spiritual stratum made of; 
what is it?" 

"It is the reality, the Eternal verity of 
thought in its essence. All thought is first 
born in the spirit. It is then expressed, either 
mentally, or both mentally and actually in 
sound, through the medium of the brain. 
The atmosphere of spiritual thought that sur- 
rounds the earth is of human emanation." 

" It seems, then, that thought strata are 
principally made up of the emotions. Melan- 
choly, anger, joy, ambition, grief, — these are 
the emotional elements of human nature, and 
it seems that angry thoughts add to the 
strataic forces (if I may coin a word for the 
occasion) of anger in general, while kind and 
249 



As It is to Be 



loving thoughts augment the strataic forces of 
peace and tenderness ? " 

" Exactly so. Anger, discontent, indigna- 
tion, hatred, envy, malice, and all uncharitable- 
ness go in thought-form to their own peculiar 
place, and when these forces become over- 
much, dominating the forces of true human 
brotherhood, they produce war, dissension, 
lawsuits, murder, robbery, and crimes of 
every kind. Epidemic diseases become more 
widely spread by the thoughts of the multi- 
tude drawing upon themselves the massed 
fears of the community, — currents of thought 
flowing like rivers over the heads of those who 
constantly add to their depth. Every evil 
wish or unrighteous desire adds to the 
thought-force of criminality, sensuality, law- 
lessness, and anarchy. 

" Out of a concentrated mass of wrong opin- 
ions, wrong motives, wrong wishes, revolu- 
tion, revolt, tyranny, cruelty, and unreason 
break out in a city or a country, inflamed 
first by all that is uttered, and last, but not 
least, by all that is unuttered but silently 
250 



Thought 



thought; in many instances bodying forth in 
terrible eruptions the whole secret power of 
the body politic. 

" Those who make for righteousness in their 
inner lives — the lives not uttered at all, per- 
haps, to their neighbors — do more to make a 
community equable, contented, healthful, pros- 
perous, cultivated, open-handed, and honest 
than all the teachers and orators put together. 
They are the silent, earnest, constant power 
for good, attracting and holding the giant 
energies of massed thought in harmony with 
the place they inhabit, and even over the lives 
and fortunes of those only casually associated 
with them, they continue a settled agency." 

"Does our silent thought or tendency of 
thought appeal to or touch upon persona with 
whom we hold no communication by words or 
apparent notice, with efficient influence? M 

"Your thought is yourself and goea with 
you wherever you go. So if, for instance, yon 
enter an elevator full of people whom you 
never saw before, if your thought happens 
to be pure, sweet, humane, harmonious or 
251 



As It is to Be 



elevating, you inevitably impart it to the 
atmosphere and attract to you and to them 
the forces of such thought out of the general 
mass. Unaware of it, they absorb it. If you 
could see as we see, how astonished you 
would be to note the change wrought in the 
thought of a group of persons when suddenly 
a mind of a clear, spiritual nature comes 
among them. It is like a fresh breeze. They 
feel it, but do not know how or whence it 
comes. Virtue goes out to others from all 
who desire the good of others. If you long 
to bless the world, you can bless it by being 
heavenly-minded, prone to charity and good- 
will, earnest in endeavor to be better, and 
strong in faith. Your thought is your atmos- 
phere, which touches other thought atmos- 
pheres either for good or evil." 

" How did Christ heal the sick ? Your 
speaking of virtue going out to others, re- 
minds me that when the sick woman touched 
His garments He felt ' virtue go out of Him/ 
and as she had such absolute faith she was 
healed." 

252 



Thought 



" Simply take that as a supreme illustration 
of what we have been saying. The Christ, 
divinely pure, with His soul longing to bless, 
heal, save, was in harmony, absolutely, with 
the thought-strata of all health, all prosperity, 
and all righteousness. There was nothing in 
His nature to alloy or debase the pure energy 
of goodness or virtue, which, in other words, is 
Eternal Life, to which, with perfect faith, He 
appealed. There was no obstacle of mixed 
motive to prevent His will from operating on 
and attracting to Himself the whole concen- 
trated energy of thought, which represented 
health and happiness ; He was en rapport with 
unadulterated spirit, therefore instantaneous- 
ly His atmosphere and then His thought res- 
ponded to the woman's perfect faith in Him, and 
the ' miracle' was performed by simple, com- 
plete obedience to God's natural, spiritual law." 

" That is certainly a new interpretation of 

miracle." 

" It is the true one." 

" I have often wondered if evil prayers arc 

ever answered ? " 

253 



As It is to Be 



" They practically are not heard as prayers. 
They add their quota of evil thought-force to 
the general mass of mortal thought, but no 
evil prayer can enter or be recognized in the 
realm of spirit, and it produces no response 
there. The spirit has no ear for evil, no 
eye for evil, no sense for evil. Therefore an 
evil thought cannot penetrate into spiritual 
consciousness." 

" You are a spirit, are you not ? " 

" I am." 

"Yet you are talking of evil. Have you 
no spiritual consciousness of evil ? " 

" Not as you mean it. I do not mean to 
say that a spirit cannot understand that evil 
exists, or cannot see it going on, or cannot 
desire to alleviate the misery it causes. We 
have a consciousness of the evil in mortality, 
but no consciousness of evil in ourselves or 
in our surrounding atmosphere. We cannot 
respond to evil desires, because we have no 
evil desires. There is no attraction or har- 
mony. You cannot mingle water and oil by 
just shaking them together. We enter into 
254 



Thought 



the mortal atmosphere and see all that goes 
on therein, but we no more mix with it or 
are a part of it than you can mix a glass of 
water with a bottle of oil." 

"The material, then, is wholly thrown off? 
I ask this advisedly." 

" The material is wholly thrown off." 

" Yet you, as a thought, have a form ? " 

" Yes, certainly." 

" Can that form penetrate material ? " 

"Easily." 

" For instance, can you go through a stone 
wall?" 

" Why not ? What is to hinder ? There is 
no substance which we cannot penetrate. 
Substance does not exist to ns." 

" Are you affected by heat or cold ? " 

"No." 

" Are you affected by gases, electricity, or 
chemical combinations ? " 

"No." 

"Are you as much at case in a howling 
blizzard as in a warm Bummer's day?" 

"We feel no perturbation whatever by 
your storms." 255 



As It is to Be 



"According to that, should you so desire, 
you could approach the sun until you fairly 
were within its flaming ball." 

" We can. But why do you ask this ? " 

" I desire to perfectly understand the immu- 
tability of spirit. For I am most anxious 
when I become a spirit to do just that. In 
defiance of all material conditions, I wish to 
visit and see for myself the planets, comets, 
stars, nebula3, and all on or in them, so that 
I may fully understand the glory of God." 

" There is no reason why you should not, 
as long as you are in harmony with His will." 

" But you say in spirit one cannot be out of 
harmony with His will." 

" Thank Him, no. That was only an ex- 
pression. But He may not at once permit 
such journeys. If He does not you will not 
wish to go. But in all probability there will 
be no reason why you should not follow out 
your wish to the utmost." 

" I can hardly wait to explore this world, 
for instance." 

"Yes, it is natural that you should first 
256 



Thought 



wish to know your native planet. When you 
join us, if you wish to visit the most inaccesi- 
ble portions of the globe, you will not neces- 
sarily go alone. Thousands share your pure 
desire to know their Mother Earth in all her 
phases of grandeur and beauty. You will be 
accompanied by the poet, the thinker, the 
scholar, the traveller, or if you prefer, you 
may go in solitude, led with unerring guid- 
ance by the law of attraction with you. 

" You will, perhaps, be escorted by a sea- 
captain who glories in the remembrance of 
successful battles with the deep, and who 
notes with a smile the ports and bays where 
his good ship lay at anchor. The geologist, 
no longer hampered, will point out to you 
the primeval rocks, or with swift and fearless 
energy make his way with you beneath the 
earth's brown crust to explore the hidden 
depths of her interior being. 

On mountain heights of snowy peaks, where 

it were almost death for a man to venture, 

you may stay at ease surveying with joy the 

plain stretching out before you, or, retir- 

17 257 



As It is to Be 



ing into space by a simple thought, may be- 
hold the speckled globe with its cities and 
shores, oceans and continents, roll its huge 
sides around beneath your gaze, until from 
' China to Peru,' from ' Greenland's icy moun- 
tains to India's coral strand,' her magnificent 
panorama shall do its best to fascinate and 
hold your willing and enchanted eyes. 

" Nor is this all. Mere sight without com- 
prehension were but the tapping of a drum- 
stick on a drum. Laws, forces, beauties, 
harmonies, growing out of a general grouping 
and massing of the whole in the conscious- 
ness, appear to the spirit in clear and simple 
directness, each taking its own place in the 
grand result and never altering from the man- 
date by a hair. That mandate is Love, 
universal Love, which shapes all things unto 
righteousness — and believe us, never was a 
truer saying than that l the hairs of your head 
are all numbered,' or that ' not a sparrow fall- 
eth to the ground without your Father.' " 



258 



CHAPTER XXIII 

THE GOD-SOUL OF MAN 

THESE sweet words gave my soul 
exquisite rest. But soon after the 
last writing I again began : " Many 
people imagine that God made a set of laws, 
all tending to the best good of His children, 
and then practically left His children to work 
out their own salvation. 1 1 can imagine,' say 
some, ' that God cares for us in a general way, 
but when I think of this little, insignificant 
ball on which I move, and then of my small, 
insignificant self, as compared with His uni- 
verse, I cannot believe that He notices me 
in particular, or has anything especial to do 
with my life/" 

" What can they mean ? " 
" Why, I suppose that they cannot imagine 
so great a being condescending to notice or 
care for so small a being as a man or woman." 
259 



As It is to Be 



" Do you not care for your own ? " 

" We certainly do." 

"Do you care for the drops of blood in 
your own bodies ? " 

" Certainly. Is this a comparison ? " 

" You and all like you are God." 

"We are God?" 

" Insomuch as His spirit is in you, you are 
God." 

" Kindly explain this." 

"You have no selfhood, really. You are 
you, only because He has permitted a part of 
Himself to enter an individual form. Your 
selfhood consists in being endowed with an 
individuality of thought different from other 
individualities of thought, but should He 
recall that endowment you would become no 
longer a self, but selfless in Him." 

" Is it likely He will ? " 

" I know not. Many have disappeared out 
of our realm of consciousness." 

" Is that what you meant when you said 
you did not know if Christ was in the God- 
head, you had never seen him out of it ? " 
260 



The God-Soul of Man 



" I think I could not have meant that ex- 
actly. Note what I have just said. I said, 
1 Many have disappeared out of our realm of 
consciousness ; ' that presupposes that they were 
once within our realm of consciousness. 1 1 e 
never was. I believe, and we all believe, 
that He was one with God, and there was 
no necessity for progression where perfection 
already obtained." 

" If many have disappeared from your realm 
of consciousness, how do you know that they 
did not go into that realm of l outer darkness ' 
where is ' weeping and wailing and gnashing 
of teeth ' ? " 

" I know it because there is no ' outer 
darkness,' and they were as Gods among us, 
whose knowledge of the Higher Goodness 
made them beyond all words radiant with 
perfect light. They were the angels, the 
leaders, so far in advance of us in recognized 
goodness that we thrill with heavenly joy 
just to remember the glance of their beauti- 
ful eyes! Alas! that none on earth have 
seen such, nor can sec! And how near it 
201 



As It is to Be 



brings us to earth by comparison ! How 
little we have advanced when we compare 
ourselves with those mighty, lovely ones who 
have gone on and up by their own inherent 
purity ! 

" Ah ! my child, you have touched us with 
almost a mortal feeling of helplessness in ask- 
ing us these searching questions. But even 
now we know that you and every man and 
every woman will yet be unutterably lovely 
in the brightness of unspeakable splendor. 
Why, then, even for a moment, suggest that 
life Eternal is a task ? Nay, rather a sweet 
and swift movement upward, borne on by the 
ever-present attraction of Love for its own ; 
which, let it act upon the spirit when or 
where it will, in the body or out of the body, 
bears its divine command of Joy to every 
created being." 

" You say that those lovely highest angels 
have ' disappeared out of your realm of con- 
sciousness.' Do they ever return ? " 

"They may." 

" But, alas ! that again presupposes separa- 
262 



The God-Soul of Man 



tion. Is it a second death ? For if they go 
— are lost out of your consciousness — what 
is the difference between that and our friends' 
dying, going out of our realm of conscious- 
ness? It is separation any way you can 
arrange it." 

" Yes, but what a glorious separation ! On 
earth you have no absolute knowledge of eter- 
nal life. Here we know there is no death, 
loss, nor end. If a queen-mother feels her 
heart throb with joy and exultant pride when 
her noble son, grown to manly strength and 
understanding, ascends the throne amid the 
rejoicings of his people, and, in answer to 
their glad acclaims, pledges himself to equity, 
mercy, wisdom, and honor, as the head and 
leader of the nation, how much more do 
thousands of queen-mothers in Heaven lift 
up their voices of joy when their sons, having 
attained the high prize of perfection, so far 
as we know it, enter into the realm of Divine 
Holiness, and receive the honors due to merit ! 

"All Heaven is in festival and in brighter 
glory when that grand occasion is announced, 



263 



As It is to Be 



and even as a gallant ship is welcomed by a 
thousand voices when she comes into port 
after a long battle with wind and sea, so 
millions cry out with sympathetic pleasure 
and beautiful anticipation when one among 
them goes to the Celestials. Then, indeed, 
can be seen a multitude that no man can 
number, bearing palm branches of unutter- 
able peace, and singing hosannas to Him 
that sitteth upon the Throne ! For we all 
shall join Him, even you, every man and 
every human being. Not soon, not perhaps 
for centuries, but finally ; and every moment 
of your time, and every impulse of good 
by which we measure ours, brings each to 
the sweet, bright boundary, which, set like 
a wall of precious stones about the Throne, 
is inscribed forever and ever with the 
meaning, — 

Holiness unto the Lord ! " 



264 



CHAPTER XXIV 

THE DRAMA — A DAY IN HEAVEN 

SOME time elapsed, after reading over 
this last utterance, before I could bring 
myself to begin again. The words 
seemed sacred. They seemed, in a few sen- 
tences, to comprehend a vast circle of ideas 
and an almost infinite vista of progn 
Indeed as I had written during so many 
months, there had appeared to be a growth of 
spiritual knowledge within myself which 
seemed as if absorbed from some unknown 
source. I found myself positively freed from 
all fear of death and had imbibed a gentler 
acceptance of life. I then resumed a former 
train of thought. 

" The fact that we are born on this planet 
seems to differentiate us from other intelligent 
beings, does it not? Each inhabited globe 
has its peculiar people ? " 
265 



As It is to Be 



" Flowers differ in color and odor, yet are 
all rooted in the same earth. So worlds and 
their races differ, yet are all from the same 
Source." 

" You have stated with considerable em- 
phasis that ' memory is the birth-gift of earth/ 
What do you mean by that ? " 

" We mean that life exists in many forms 
and phases before it reaches the human condi- 
tion, but not until it reaches earth and as- 
sumes a mortal form is it endowed with 
memory. Many of your physical senses were 
developed before your physical organism was 
completely formed, and not until memory 
entered into its composition were you an 
intelligent and intellectual being." 

" Do you mean to say [that my body has 
been in a process of evolution, and that when 
it had finally evolved into a human form that 
it was endowed with a new power which we 
call memory ? " 

" No, I do not mean that your actual body 
born of your mother was evolved from a still 
lower form of body similar to it. I mean that 
266 



The Drama — A Day in Heaven 

the elements of which your body is composed 
have always been in existence somewhere, in 
some form, going through different phases and 
conditions of existence, and that it was not 
until they were gathered into a definite form, 
which you call human, that they became en- 
dowed with spirit or the true life, which in- 
cludes memory as the essential quality of 
individuality. And it is earth which gives 
this birth-gift to otherwise unconscious 
matter." 

"In that case, we might call earth the 
planet of memory." 

" Yes, as we might call Venus the planet 
of love." 

" Why, does the planet Venus endow her 
inhabitants with that quality? " 

" You do not understand me. I do not 
mean to say that earth, as a planet, lias 
power to endow her inhabitants with memory. 
I mean that the human form is the highest 
form on earth, and that form is thus endowed." 

"On other planets there are other forma, 
perhaps, endowed with other po\u 
•207 



As It is to Be 



" There certainly are." 

" This appears to lead to the doctrine of 
transmigration of souls from one planet to 
another, living a life in each and attaining 
different powers in each. It is a very old 
doctrine. Is there any truth in it ? " 

"No." 

" And yet you say that the other planets 
are inhabited ? " 

" Some are." 

" By human beings ? " 

" No. Human beings are earth-born beings, 
and that is why I called memory the gift of 
earth." 

" Are the inhabitants of other planets en- 
dowed with souls ? When they die do they 
become spirits ? " 

" Some do, and some do not. They differ 
in glory both materially and spiritually." 

" Are the inhabitants of earth the most or 
the least spiritual of the dwellers on the 
planets?" 

" Neither. But it is useless for you to try 
to prove anything by this means of investiga- 
268 



The Drama — A Day in Heaven 

tion. We cannot bring convincing scientific 
proof to bear on the question. As you cannot 
see and have never seen, cannot hear and 
have never heard, the inhabitants of another 
planet, we cannot convince you that there are 
such." 

"Andrew Jackson Davis, the clairvoyant, 
declares he has seen the inhabitants of other 
planets, and even describes them." 

"He may have, but the world in general 
does not believe it, neither do you, actually. 
And right here and now, let us explain why 
we do not tell you great scientific truths, or 
unfold scientific laws, or give you discoveries 
and proofs of things outside of your material 
world in the worlds of matter beyond. We 
have actually nothing to do with the material. 
Although as in the present instance, we are 
obliged to make use of the material to convey 
spiritual truth, we only use the material, that 
is, your brain and pen, as a medium to express 
what otherwise you could not know by any 
other means. It is not intended by Chd that 
anything that the human mind M oapabk of 
269 



As It is to Be 



discovering for itself should be handed to it 
like a free gift. 

" For instance, as I used the picture of the 
geologist plunging into the centre of the earth, 
you wondered why I did not go on and say 
what he would find there, whether a solid 
interior of fire, a nucleus of rock, and then a 
layer of fire, and then the crust, or whatever 
else it might prove to be. In time this will all 
be determined by science, and we have no per- 
mission nor right to steal from human intellect 
its chance of glory and strength, by telling be- 
forehand the secrets it delights to gradually 
discover. 

" In the realm of matter all that man needs 
to know can be brought to light by him, and 
it is his zeal for knowledge and brave defiance 
of obstacles, his patient waiting and observ- 
ing, his almost miraculous sagacity and power 
of concentration, which have produced the high 
rate of natural intellectual force in the mass 
of the people to-day. The leaders, the work- 
ers, the thinkers, leaven the whole lump with 
the fire of their transcendent genius, and it 
270 



The Drama — A Day in Heaven 

would be a poor part for a spirit to play to 
crush out and render useless the very ambition 
for knowledge and growth which makes hu- 
manity but little lower than the angels, the 
pride and the amazement of the universe. 

" Definite knowledge of spiritual law and 
life must be communicated knowledge, for 
however deep his intuition or sure his pene- 
tration, man cannot truly search the spiritual 
by himself. Contact with spirit and spiritual 
thought alone can correctly inform him of his 
spiritual nature and destiny. He cannot work 
out that problem without help, for he has no 
spiritual data or phenomena unconnected with 
spirit. Material cannot translate spirit to his 
consciousness. For this reason One spirit, the 
highest, entered into the form of a man and 
became a living link, binding together, hence- 
forth and forever, the material and the spirit- 
ual. He established a connection. He is the 
wire, one may say, over which messages may 
run from Heaven to earth, lie said He was 
the Door and the Way, and in so far as we 
may follow Him we also endeavor to show 
271 



As It is to Be 



you the Door and lead you to that Way, 
which is the Resurrection and the Life." 

" It seems to me that the world is con- 
stantly becoming more interested in every- 
thing pertaining to the subject. I hardly 
take up a paper or periodical of any kind 
without finding some narrative, article, story, 
or anecdote touching upon the very varied 
phenomena generally attributed to i spirits/ 
But will this settle into any actual knowl- 
edge ? Will the time come when we shall 
be familiar with the true causes of phenom- 
ena and be able to manipulate them for our 
use ? For instance, is there any way to har- 
monize and make effective the casual, desul- 
tory, mixed thought of the crowd ? " 

" No, not at once. Education in spiritual 
law will finally effect it. When children are 
taught in school that prosperity to themselves 
and the world is secured as much by thought 
as by deed, and morality of thought is as 
essential as morality of action ; when youth 
comprehend that harmony with goodness 
means harmony with happiness, as well in 
272 



The Drama — A Day in Heaven 

a material as in a religious and spiritual 
sense ; when men and women stave off and 
conquer illness by will and thought, assist- 
ing with spiritual force the activity of remedial 
materials, — then will begin to grow of itself a 
tendency to harmonious thought ; and science, 
by data of observed phenomena, will soon 
give to the world rational rules whereby 
thought shall be controlled and exercised 
in a way to gain the greatest good for the 
greatest number. Meantime many like you 
will first give the hint. This is a mission 
worthy to satisfy most." 

" May I not now be indulged by being told 
something of Heaven in its sweetest aspect | 
I mean, in its union of families, its mating of 
lovers, its amusements, its pleasures. All 
these very great and moral ideas about laws 
and forces are of course essential in your 
dictation to me, but again 1 must plead for 
something that shall satisfy the poetry, the 
romance, the affections of my soul. Can you 
not describe to me a day in Heaven 1 Tell 
me what ordinary spirits like mine do there 
18 278 



As It is to Be 



after they have become accustomed to their 
new state of being and are at ease among 
all the bright lights and immensities of 
Eternity?" 

" You say it would be a great pleasure to 
you to travel. Yet on earth, when you think 
of travel, what does it involve ? Always more 
or less anxiety, expense, danger, weariness, 
deprivation and annoyance. What would you 
think if you could travel and see all the won- 
ders of your world and other worlds, without 
fatigue or fear ? 

" No tired, hot feet ; no chafed skin ; no 
weary, dazzled eyes ; no thirsty throat ; no 
cold or hunger ; no anxiety as to where you 
shall sleep; no necessity to consult time- 
tables, or to arrange for your baggage! 
What if you could speed silently, swiftly, 
securely, to any desired place in all God's 
universe, to see or do whatever suited your 
sweetly righteous fancy ? What if that dear 
one, that appreciative soul, who could always 
understand and sympathize with every thought 
and feeling of your heart, could go with you 
274 



The Drama — A Day in Heaven 

and enjoy all you enjoyed? If there be 
pictures, shall you not see them? If there 
be gardens, shall you not wander in their 
paths ! If a collector has spent years in 
getting together the rarest and most beauti- 
ful specimens of art, shall any one hinder 
your delighted observation? Whatever is 
innocent and noble and right that your dis- 
enthralled spirit wishes to do, that it may 
do, without let or hindrance, trouble, pain, 
or payment of any kind. 

" This is the freedom and light of the occu- 
pations of Heaven. The poet may turn him 
to his poetry ; the mother to her little ones ; 
the lover of mechanics shall study from sub- 
lime examples and by eternal principles. 
The tired worker shall lie at case and rest ; 
the heart bowed down with earthly trial shall 
be filled with a sense of luxurious happii 
— more blessed because so unanticipated. 
Those who were held to the wheel of the 
world's toil, undeveloped in mind and morals 
and spiritual insight, shall be so divinely 
recompensed in their new life that their glad 
275 



As It is to Be 



laughter shall re-echo through the soft valleys 
of their sunlit homes. 

"Believe me, to be born a human being 
is a glorious thing ! It is to have bestowed 
upon one, for the price of a few years of 
educational probation in the body, that in- 
dividual consciousness which can never die, 
and which, once the chrysalis of the flesh 
is left behind, enters a form so well adapted 
to its best condition that it is self-sustaining, 
and no longer a hamper upon the freedom of 
the mind. But respect that flesh ! Respect 
and honor the splendid environment which 
has been given to your entity on earth! 
Thank God for the delicate, yet strong, com- 
plex yet perfect body which gives expression 
to your present condition of existence. Con- 
serve its noble energies ; preserve pure the 
well-spring of the blood ; use and never abuse 
it ; keep it holy ! Earth is now your God- 
designed dwelling-place: your body is the 
Temple of His Spirit! Live harmoniously 
within, until you are called to your next phase 

of progressive experience. 
276 



The Drama — A Day in Heaven 

"And then, of other occupations: you are 
very fond of the drama, arc you not ? " 

M Exceedingly, when good." 

" Did you ever expect to find a drama in 
Heaven ? " 

" I might have, if you yourselves had not 
shut out that idea ! You say that nothing 
evil can enter there ! So how can you pos- 
sibly have any drama ? The drama is made 
up of the lights and shades of human emotion. 
It cannot be a story of endless felicity. There 
must be contrast. It represents crimes, trag- 
edies, wrongs, mysteries, and all sorts of evil 
complications, such as are supposed to be con- 
stantly taking place in real life ; and if there 
were none such, there could be no story, for 
to make triumphs of virtue, one must have 
something to triumph over, and to work out a 
plot with any pith or point, there must be 
wrongs to avenge or to overcome. Unless it 
is all farce or light comedy, I do not see how 
there can be any drama in Heaven." 

"But what do you suppose beconu 

dramatists and actors ? There have been gnat 
277 



As It is to Be 



earthly geniuses in both lines. They love 
it. There is nothing necessarily wrong in it. 
Is their occupation gone because they have 
entered a more sensitive, keen, perceptive form 
and state of being ? " 

" Really I cannot answer you. If your rule 
holds good, I do not see where emotional 
drama — the drama of jealousy, hatred, in- 
trigue, ambition, as pitted against self-sacrifice, 
love, candor, self-abandonment for the good of 
others — can come in." 

" Well, listen to me. We have a drama 
which deals with realities. Your drama is 
that of imagination. l Camille ' and ( Monte 
Cristo,' ' Juliet ' and ' Petruchio,' drawn from 
the fancy and put into imagined situations, 
are represented by men and women who learn 
the part and endow the character with their 
own conception of what it should be like. 
Here actors and actresses act out their own 
souls, and make a drama on the spot, under 
direction of that controlling mind which 
draws them into harmonious association for 
the agreed purpose. 

278 



The Drama — A Day in Heaven 

" Tragedy, comedy or farce, or that higher 
drama of the intellect which deals with what 
to you were dry abstractions, is not denied us, 
for we have the whole world-history of planets 
from which to draw and re-enact those scenes 
of gorgeousness and splendor, imperial pomp 
and historic bravery, which even now thrill 
and re-thrill the observer with wondering awe. 

"If you will observe human nature you will 
find that deeds of heroism blanch the cheek 
and fill the eyes as no deeds of evil can. A 
stage murder causes a shudder or a feeling of 
horrified disgust, mingled with instinctive 
hate, indignation, and desire for revenge. 
But a stage hero in the act of giving up his 
life, his love, his every hope, to save his honor, 
fills the audience with a new fire, a new glow, 
a new love for humanity, a new faith in itself. 

" Poems, describing deeds of valor ; standing 
by duty until death; offering all of life for 
love ; carrying fidelity and loyalty to the pitch 
of self-immolation ; martyrdoms for principle ; 
secret struggles with love, — triumphing and 
giving the beloved one to another : these and 
279 



As It is to Be 



thousands of examples remain where nothing 
evil enters into the whole composition, but 
rather everything that is inspiring, noble, re- 
fining and strengthening to the best impulses 
of the heart. All such enter here. 

" Again, much that you call evil, as we have 
before shown you, is not evil, and much that 
you call tragedy is not tragedy. To you, 
death is always the tragedy of tragedies ! 
To us, of course, it is transformed into a 
simple incident, a momentary break of un- 
consciousness between one hour and another. 
You have fainted away, have you not ? " 

" Yes, and remained unconscious fully half 
an hour." 

" Have you since dwelt on it as the most 
tragic thing in your life ? " 

" Why, no ; I did not realize much about it 
even at the time, and certainly have not 
thought anything particularly about it since." 

" Was it frightful or tragic to you ? " 

" No. I simply fell back, and when I came 
to consciousness I felt a little weak." 

"Please to look upon death in the same 
280 



The Drama — A Day in Heaven 

way, minus the weakness and plus strength, 
peace, and happiness. So, to resume, we do 
have the drama. Human history is full of 
interesting situations, — far more delightful 
and fascinating than ever yet have been 
portrayed upon the stage. Our plots are 
plots worth having, for they include facts, 
more perfectly grouped as to harmony and 
sequence than mortal ever dreamed. Do 
you not often meet women of whom people 
say, 'Her life is far more interesting than 
any you ever read. If it could be published 
the whole world would be entranced ' ! " 

"Oh, yes, I even know a woman wlu.se 
romance is far superior to any novel or play." 

" If you could have seen the other elements 
grouped around her, her career would have 
seemed even more remarkable. To make a 
Heavenly drama, we have but to group the 
elements. Of themselves they play with so 
much verve and force that I doubt your 
thinking the plot insipid ! Look into your 
own life! Can you not remember some 
dramatic touches? And was the result in 
281 



As It is to Be 



any way evil? Now put in the lives that 
put in the dramatic touches; their relations 
to you and to others ! Ah, you begin to be 
somewhat interested ! Now add the supreme 
moment of love ! Now add the supreme mo- 
ment of faith ! Now the supreme moment 
of self-sacrifice ! The scenes are somewhat 
'plottish'? I thought so." 

"Still, I do not see where you get your 
contrasts, your shades, your solemnities, fear, 
horror, doubt, anxiety, suspense, agony, those 
elements which hold the sympathies and work 
upon the pity, the loyalty, the enthusiasm of 
the beholder. You have said that nothing 
evil is so much as reflected on the spiritual 
canvas, — it will not take ! Then, how can 
you make dramatic use of evil, which is the 
only contrast to good that can work a play 
up to a climax? Who or what is your 
villain, and what does he pursue ? " 

" Again you mistake. You are misled by 

that old theory that every incident of a life, 

if evil, is noted, classed as evil, and helps to 

round up one side — the evil side — of a 

282 



The Drama — A Day in Heaven 

nature. Now, we look at nothing as being 
actually evil which leads to and actually 
promotes good, by the resistance it excites 
and the triumphs of virtue which grow out 
of it. Untempted innocence is characterless. 
If evil leads to evil and degenerates the 
character and finally dominates and subdues 
the whole nature, that evil is unmitigated. 
But much classed as evil is disciplinary and 
remedial, and therefore beneficent, as tending 
in the end to greater virtue than as if it had 
never been experienced. A burnt child dreads 
the fire. Caution is substituted for careless- 
ness, forethought for recklessness. The reali- 
zation of the misery of evil, its whips and 
stings of conscience, its shame of heart, is 
often necessary to bring a mind to a sense of 
its own unworthincss. 

"You were not put on the earth to slumber 
in undisturbed innocence! You were put 
thereto 'work out your own salvation with 
fear and trembling,' going through all kinds 
of evils, and if falling, rising again and going 
on ! In that sense evil is not truly evil to 
283 



As It is to Be 



him who conquers, but a strong stepping-stone. 
There is no word which is so difficult to define 
to human consciousness. The good in human 
nature is developed by just those experiences' 
which are generally termed evils. But were 
there no such experiences, no temptations, no 
struggles, there could be no progress, no 
growth. Man might as well be a tree or a 
stone, if he were never subjected to trial. He 
could not be a moral being if he had no 
choice between right and wrong." 

"But you say no evil enters spirit! Are 
not spirits, then, moral ? And if so, how can 
they be moral if they have no evils with 
which to contend ? " 

" Spirits are not moral in the earthly sense 
of morality. There is no occasion. They 
have become spiritual beings, and have risen 
beyond being moral beings in the sense of 
your idea." 

"Well, how can our morals be conserved 

there ? How can the virtue of generosity, for 

instance, be continued and developed in a 

place where every one has everything he 

284 



The Drama — A Day in Heaven 

desires? I should think it behooves us to 
develop it all we can here, for I do not see 
but what it is our only chance! The nega- 
tions of Heaven ! How many they must be ! 
They seem to eliminate from the character not 
only its evils, but its virtues. Just see ! No 
generosity — everybody has everything. No 
envy — your neighbor has no better than you. 
No jealousy — each has his mate, who abso- 
lutely satisfies in utter confidence. No ambi- 
tion — every wish is gratified. No pride — we 
are all on a level. No regret — there is nothing 
to regret; all is forgiven and forgotten. No 
hope — all things are realized; there is 
nothing to hope for! No faith — for faith 
has become knowledge. No charity — be- 
cause no one needs charity. No expectation 
— Heaven has satisfied us. No desires — 
they have been gratified. No fear— that is 
all past. No sorrow — that is done with. 
No doubt — we sec face to face. No appe- 
tites — we have no physical organization to 
gratify. No anger — angels can have no 
temper ! No patriotism — we have no eonn- 
285 



As It is to Be 



try and no enemies to awaken patriotism. No 
self-sacrifice — where each one is perfectly 
happy there can be nothing to sacrifice one's 
self for. No suspense — ' we know as we 
are known.' No weakness — ' for we shall be 
strong in His likeness.' No economy — for all 
things are forever provided. No policy — for 
no motive obtains for policy. No j ustice — for 
all has been justly adjusted and there is no 
question of right and wrong. No compassion 
— for there are no objects of compassion ; all 
are happy as we are. No belief — for sight 
and knowledge are ours. . 

" In fact, so many human qualities must be- 
come useless in a society where there are no 
pain, no sickness, no parting, no death, no 
faults, no sins, no misunderstandings, no mis- 
takes, that one searches about in one's mind 
to find what may not be stripped from us — 
what may be allowed to remain intact of all 
that we have worked so hard to build up here ! 

" Character, the outcome of all these quali- 
ties, and by means of these qualities made to 
be what it is, must become, in a state of 
286 



The Drama — A Day in Heaven 

Heavenly perfection, a useless thing, unless 

we can find out what the concentrated essence 
of all these qualities is ! For it is plain that 
we do not need the qualities ! " I felt that 
the spirit smiled very indulgently. " Your 
characterizations arc in many instances far 
too sweeping, but I can tell you that you 
become the essence, the kernel, the soul of 
what those qualities have made you upon 
earth." 

"And what is the essence of character? 
What are the fittest qualities that will survive 
in us and give us identity and individuality in 
Heaven ? What is the supreme outcome of 
these earthly characteristics so familiar to us 
here?" 

"First, Love. That is immortal, eternal. 
Nothing can ever take that away. In 1 leaven 
wc all love each other. Next, peace. For 
without fear, sorrow, and sin, the peace which 
passeth understanding must forever enter the 
soul. Next, harmony. Our environment be- 
ing perfectly adapted to our being, and our 
spirits to each other, no discord can enter in. 
287 



As It is to Be 



Next, knowledge, ever increasing, ever unfold- 
ing. Next, worship — forever shall we adore 
the Father Almighty. Next progression — 
the growth and unfolding of every power 
towards the higher goodness. Lastly, per- 
fection itself! thus fulfilling the injunction of 
the Christ, 'Be ye perfect, even as your 
Father in Heaven is perfect.' All tends to 
the attaining of infinite perfection — that God 
may be in us and we in Him, that at last God 
shall be all in all ! " 

The magnificence of this answer kept me 
silent for some time. I finally continued : 

" But to return to the drama, from which 
we seem to have so far digressed. You have 
your opposing features ? " 

" We have our lights and shades, our con- 
trast and climax actually before us in our 
drama. The reunion of those long parted by 
death, mystery, insanity, shipwreck, and dis- 
aster, the lover clasping in his arms the love 
for whom he had waited a life-time, breathing 
into actual form the emotions of their mutual 
souls, contain the poetry and romance, the 
288 



The Drama — A Day in Heaven 

agony and bliss which would be the useless 
envy of the earthly dramatist, and is the 
deepest glory and joy of ours." 

" In this world the drama is the production 
of the intellect. What is intellect ? It seems 
it is not actual spirit, although it is all the 
spirit we can comprehend. When I think of 
my spirit, / think of that I think with, or 
intellect." 

" The intellect is one of the faculties of 
spirit, just as hearing is one of your faculties." 

u According to that, hearing is a faculty of 
intellect and intellect is a faculty of a still 
higher power, which is spirit ? " 

" Exactly so. And mark you, we said one 
of them. You think that intellect is the 
supreme faculty, because you know of nothing 
higher than intelligent comprehension, but it 
is to us only one of the attributes which make 
up the quality of being." 

"Well, let us go on." 

" In picturing to you the dramatic points of 
your life, wherein have I brought your errors, 
your sins, your mistakes? Ton see, if a lift 
17 289 



As It is to Be 



has a tendency for good, it does not necessarily 
shut out the dramatic element. So here." 

" Then if you have the drama, of course 
you have opera, oratorio, orchestra, every kind 
of musical entertainment ? " 

"Yes." 

" I should like to hear Parepa Rosa sing, 
and Jenny Lind, Mario, the whole long list. 
What a glorious possibility! — and to think 
that they cannot die and leave us again ! Or 
Dante, with his long, melancholy face actually 
lighted up with a smile. Or Longfellow, read- 
ing his poem of ' Two Angels,' now an angel 
himself!" 

"You begin to imagine somewhat nearly 
the truth. The doings of a day in Heaven are 
doings of what each one most likes. How 
many times you have sat with a friend on 
earth, absorbed in some sweet topic, tenderly 
harmonious and happy — momentarily gaining 
life and joy, wisdom and health, from each 
other — when the envious clock would toll out 
the hour, and with a sigh the wraps would be 
hurried on, ( Too long I stayed,' quoted, and 
290 



The Drama — A Day in Heaven 

Time, the old miser, would send your friend 
flying, for nobody knew how long an absence. 
The aggravation of it ! The pain of it ! The 
broken continuity of thought ! The unsaid 
word, the forgotten point, the undeveloped 
plan, the dissatisfaction, the sense of loss and 
disturbance ! Clocks do not strike in Heaven. 
Union is undisturbed by the necessities of 
business, trains, mails, and the other parapher- 
nalia that go to make up the motors of civili- 
zation or preservation of the race. We arc 
already preserved — to put it in a somewhat 
comical way ; we keep well, too. Intercourse 
and society have no end of time, or rather no 
time at all. 

" You hurry on earth, because away down 
deep in your hearts you are afraid you si will 
die before you get things done. That may not 
be the conscious motive, but it is the uncon- 
scious motive. You hurry to get rich so as to 
enjoy it before you die. You hurry to marry 
because you say, l Why waste time in living 
apart ? ' You hurry to bed to preserve health 
enough to go through the task of to-morrow. 
291 



As It is to Be 



You hurry up for fear you cannot perform it 
in less time. All the enjoyments depending 
upon the labor of some one compel time 
engagements; all the travel, involving acci- 
dents on railroads and financial disturbances, if 
things are not carried on systematically, must 
1 be on time ; ' and so you hurry to depots, and 
rush to steamboats, and are in perpetual toil 
and turmoil, even to get to a party or to go to 
a concert. With you, weather, conventionali- 
ties, hours, proprieties, customs, and unlim- 
ited trivialities of no real meaning or moment 
hamper all free intercourse. Here, the seren- 
ity and ease of inner grace and power ; the 
knowledge of endless harmony, prevents that 
eager strain and anxiety which so detract 
from the joys of earth. 

" The rule of goodness unlocks every door 
and flings the whole universe wide open for 
the uses and enjoyments of God's children. 
Moving quicker than light can move, with 
endless ages in which to meet every possible 
want or longing of the spirit, with every force 
pushing for us instead of against us, and 
292 



The Drama — A Day in Heaven 

every hope of old fulfilled in some best way — 
a way we recognize as the very most blessed 
that can be, — our Heavenly days pass in those 
delightful occupations which, highest in im- 
agination, picture themselves to you as most 
agreeable, and which after that transcend the 
sweetest dream, the richest fruit of industry, 
the noblest attainment of science, the purest 
conception of Love, that humanity ever bodied 
forth in song, wove into material, studied and 
wrested from the universe, or drew from the 
trembling heartstrings in a chord of majestic 
music. 

" Day in Heaven is eloquence and beauty. 
Day in Heaven is innocence and mirth. Day 
is the mastery of great problems, the focusing 
of long-trained ideas, until the light of reason 
and wisdom bursts into the consciousness with 
a rapture of awe and love to Him who leads 
them silently along. Day is the comprehension 
and use of new, unflagging powers which fail 
and dim not, neither are weary nor of weight. 
Day is sight, clear as crystal and piercing to 
infinite depths, or following to its inmost 
293 



As It is to Be 



intricate curve the ear of an insect too small 
to be seen beneath the material microscope. 
Day is the exercise of ranges of emotion and 
sense indescribable to you, but ever increasing 
in value and delicacy, while never losing 
strength and variety. Make up one day on 
earth with only one of these added powers, 
and you would declare life too poor a thing 
to resume without it. x 

" Rest in peace, little child, and ask no more. 
We have striven to give you some hint of your 
duty to yourself and to others. Open wide 
the door and ask them in. If they will 
receive, give freely. If they will not receive, 
pray for them. 

" We bid you farewell for the present, and 

trust to your growing judgment the time of 

our reunion." 

The Voices. 



294 



The Bronze Buddha 

A MYSTERY 



BY CORA LINN DANIELS 

Author of " As It Is To Be," " Sardia," etc. 
i2mo. Decorated cloth. 51.50 



Of surpassing interest. — Boston Globe. 

In this remarkable novel the combination of 
the most extraordinary mysticism of the Orient 
with the modern progress of the Occident gives 
opportunity for bringing out contrasts of char- 
acter in a most fascinating manner. 



The author has caught the art of deepening the inter- 
est of readers with every page. — Minneapolis Journal. 

A wonderfully attractive story, in characters and plot 
— Chicago Inter-Ocean. 

An interesting story . . . presents vivid and startling 
contrasts. — Washington Star. 

The interest is admirably sustained, and the characters 
are drawn with discrimination and true to life. — Cam- 
bridge Tribune. 

The reader's interest is held from the first page to the 
last in fascinated attention. — Lilian WhiTI* 
cago Inter-Ocean. 

LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., Publishers 
254 Washington Street, Boston, Mass. 



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